Answer:
To determine if the student is correct, we need to check if the two fractions 5/9 and 20/36 are equivalent, meaning they represent the same value.
To do this, we can simplify both fractions to their simplest form and see if they are equal.
First, let's simplify 5/9:
We can divide both the numerator and denominator by their greatest common factor (GCF), which is 1 in this case.
This gives us 5/9 in its simplest form.
Now, let's simplify 20/36:
We can find the GCF of the numerator and denominator, which is 4.
We can divide both the numerator and denominator by 4.
This gives us 5/9, which is the same as the first fraction.
Therefore, since both fractions simplify to the same value of 5/9, the student is correct in saying that 5/9 is equivalent to 20/36.