Question

the data below shows the number of harp seals and brown bears in the world as of 2010. kaylee set up a ratio of the number of harp seals to the number of brown bears. continue her work to estimate how many times as many harp seals there were than brown bears in 2010. because we are estimating, we can round. start by rounding each leading factor to the nearest whole number. species population harp seal 4.5×10^6 brown bear 1.86×10^5 harp seal / brown bear = (4.5×10^6)/(1.86×10^5) ≈ (□×10^6)/(□×10^5) 1 2 4 5

Explanation:

Step1: Round the leading factors

Round 4.5 to 5 and 1.86 to 2.

Step2: Calculate the ratio

The ratio $\frac{4.5\times 10^{6}}{1.86\times 10^{5}}\approx\frac{5\times 10^{6}}{2\times 10^{5}}$.
Using the rule of exponents $\frac{a^{m}}{a^{n}}=a^{m - n}$, we have $\frac{5\times 10^{6}}{2\times 10^{5}}=\frac{5}{2}\times10^{6 - 5}=2.5\times10^{1}=25$. But if we just consider the form $\frac{5\times 10^{6}}{2\times 10^{5}}$, the numbers to fill in the boxes are 5 and 2.

Answer:

Top - box: 5, Bottom - box: 2