Math on the Job
“Face” it: The Lego
Mount Rushmore rocks!
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On the real Mount Rushmore in South
Dakota, George Washington’s head is
about 60 feet tall. Divide by 20 to see how
many feet tall his head is in the Legoland model.
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Celebrities put their autographs and
handprints outside Grauman’s Chinese
Theatre. The real movie theater in
Hollywood is 90 feet tall. The Lego model is
2!0 that height. How tall is the Lego model, in
feet and inches? (1 foot = 12 inches)?
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Tip: Zoom in for
easy reading!
The Empire State
Building in New York
City is 1,250 feet tall.
A. If the Miniland builders had
made a model 2!0 that height,
how tall would the model be in
feet and inches?
B. The actual Lego model,
is 1@25 the height of the real
Empire State Building. How tall
is the Legoland model? (Hint:
Multiply the original’s height
by 2, then divide by 125.)
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See how a master model builder at Legoland uses
division to create mini landmarks.
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY LEGOLAND CALIFORNIA RESORT
D
o you like to play with Lego pieces?
How would you like to play with
them and get paid for it? Gary
McIntire does just that! He got
his first Lego set when he was only 4 years
old. Now his job is to create models for the
Legoland theme park in California!
“I like being challenged to build things that I
never thought about building before and using
my imagination,” Gary told DynaMath.
Gary creates models of real places out of
Lego for a section of the park called Miniland
USA. “Seeing the reactions to the models
is the greatest feeling,” Gary said. To figure
out how tall or wide to make the models, he
uses division and equivalent units of length.
Most models in Legoland are 2!0 the size of the
originals. So you can divide the dimensions of
the original by 20 to get the size of the model.
Try our Lego activity to build your division
skills and see what it’s like to have Gary’s job.
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Show your work here:
The Luxor Hotel
in Las Vegas is
shaped like an
Egyptian pyramid. The
real Luxor Hotel is 350
feet tall. The Lego Luxor
is 2!0 of that height. How
tall is the Lego Luxor,
in feet and inches?
supermath
Gary re-creates a scene
from Star Wars: The
Empire Strikes Back.
What to Do
Use division and equivalent units of
length to answer each question.
For Legoland’s new Star Wars Miniland area,
Gary and his team re-created scenes from the
Star Wars movies and The Clone Wars animated
series. “One of the most important parts of
bringing the movies to life is creating the
characters,” Gary said. Some real adults are
6 feet tall. The Miniland figures are 2!0 that
height. How tall is a Miniland figure, rounded
to the nearest inch?
4
The real White House is about 168
feet wide. The Lego White House is
2!0 the width of the original. How many
feet and inches wide is the Lego White House,
rounded to the nearest inch?
—By Linda Buchwald
Web Wise
Teachers: For differentiated reproducibles, a
projectable version of this story, and more, go
to www.scholastic.com/dynamath.
May/June 2011
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