Enormous Appetites Have you ever imagined what it would be like to work at a zoo? Well, if you love animals, you might consider how much fun it would be to work with them every day. Now imagine feeding all of those animals! Do you have any idea how much money it would cost?

Feeding Facts The Houston Zoo has 6,000 animals in its care. They range from lions and elephants to birds and reptiles. Caring for those animals is a full-time job, and feeding them all is too. It costs the Houston Zoo nearly $700,000 per year to feed all of its animals. Imagine that it was your job to figure out the zoo’s monthly or daily food budget. Could you do it? How much would it cost per month, or per week, or per day to feed all the animals? This is someone’s job and doing it well makes all the difference to the 6,000 animals at the Houston Zoo.

You can figure it out too You can figure it out too! By dividing whole numbers, you can find how much it would cost to feed all of the animals. Let’s say the exact cost of food per year totals $683,280. $683,280 (total cost) ÷ 12 (months in a year) = $ _______________ per month $683,280 (total cost) ÷ 52 (weeks in a year) = $ _______________ per week $683,280 (total cost) ÷ 365 (days in a year) = $ _______________ per day