The Road Trip Planner

Pre-Algebra · Axiom Academy

One chain of arithmetic plans a whole cross-country drive: distance, time, fuel, and cost all fall out of rate . Hold a steady 65 mph and the trip's three legs each take however long the distance demands. Rearranging the rate equation gives time = distance ÷ rate . Watch the car cover each leg while the same speed turns its miles into hours, and the running clock climbs. solve the rate equation for time 2. Fuel = Distance ÷ Miles-Per-Gallon Your car gets 28 miles per gallon . That's another rate: every 28 miles "uses up" one gallon. So the gallons you need is just the distance measured in 28-mile chunks — gallons = distance ÷ mpg . Watch the odometer roll forward and drop one gallon into the tank-counter every 28 miles. 3. Cost = Fuel × Price per Gallon Now attach a price. At 3.50 a gallon, each of those ~103 gallons costs 3.50 — so the fuel bill is gallons × price . Watch the gallons pour through the pump and the dollar total tick up 3.50 at a time. ≈ 103.2 gal, carried over from Step 2 (2,890 ÷ 28). A rate in dollars-per-gallon: here 3.50 /gal. gal × (dollars per gal) cancels gallons and leaves dollars. A 20% jump scales the bill by 1.20 — same chain, new price. 4. Add the Pieces into a Trip Budget Gas was never the whole cost. A real budget sums every category — fuel, food, and lodging — into one number. With the 6-day plan from Step 1, food runs about 680 and six hotel nights at 120 add 720 . Watch each bar stack onto the running total.

This is the written version of the interactive lesson above. See the full Pre-Algebra course.