Gemma and her sister, Elliott, collected canned food for a food drive for their local food pantries. Gemma set up collection bins in five area middle schools. Elliott set up collection bins at five area elementary schools. After the collection period, each girl wrote an expression that represented the number of items collected. Gemma wrote this expression to represent the total number of food items collected: 5 (x 15) Elliott asked Gemma what her expression represented. Gemma said, "The five represents each of the collection bins. The parentheses represent the collection box itself and the terms inside the parentheses represent what was collected. The x represents the number of canned goods in each collection bin and the 15 represents the boxed food items." Elliott represented her collection with the expression: 5x 30 Gemma asked Elliott what her expression represented. Elliott said, "5x represents the total number of canned food items in all five bins and 30 represents the total number of boxed food items collected."
