Question

During a snowstorm, Amelia tracked the amount of snow on the ground.When the storm began, there was 1 inch of snow on the ground. For the first 2hours of the storm, snow fell at a constant rate of 3 inches per hour. Thestorm then stopped for 3 hours and then started again at a constant rate of 1inch every 2 hours for the next 6 hours. Make a graph showing the inches ofsnow on the ground over time using the data that Amelia collected.

Answer 1

First, let's write on a table the information about the snow on the ground for the 11 hours it snowed:

period of time in hours amount of snow in inches

0 1

from 0 to 2 1 + t * 3 (initial amount plus 3 in/h * number of hours)

from 2 to 5 1 + 2*3 = 7 (the same amount as when it stopped raining)

from 5 to 11 7 + (t-5)/2 (amount at t = 5 plus 1 in/2h * number of

hours since hour 5)

Now, using this information on a graph, we obtain: