Think about how many meals you eat in a week. Then imagine feeding all the animals in a zoo! An elephant eats as much as 350 pounds of food each day, while a hippo eats 88 pounds of lettuce, hay and veggies per day, and a giraffe eats 75 pounds of tree leaves. Yum!
Wee ones: Which weighs more, 6 tons of earthworms or 5 tons of fish?
Little kids: If you’re in charge of the 20 tons of apples each year, what numbers do you say to count the tons? Bonus: If you have 16 tons of carrots and horses eat 3 tons of carrots and the guinea pigs eat 1 ton, how many tons of carrots are left for everybody else?
Big kids: A zoo worker can move 700 tons of food every year! If that includes 200 tons of hay and 300 tons of earthworms, how many tons of other food does that leave? Bonus: With a total of 700 tons moved in 1 year, about how much food total does that worker move each day? (Reminder: One year has 365 days.)
The sky’s the limit: If in 10 days an elephant eats what we eat in a year, how many years of our eating does the elephant eat in one year?
Answers:
Wee ones: The 6 tons of earthworms.
Little kids: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,19, 20. Bonus: 12 tons, since the horses and guinea pigs have eaten 4 tons (3+1).
Big kids: 200 tons of other stuff. Bonus: About 2 tons per day, since we have 365 days…if a year had 350 days, it would work out to exactly 700.
The sky’s the limit: 36 1/2 years, since there are 36 1/2 sets of 10-day chunks in our year.
