hey it's kaylee let's check out how absolute value
exists in the real world and when it's handy to use it ready let's go
oceanographers floating on a boat are studying animals that can be observed from sea level from
where they are they can spot three different species the clownfish at negative 45 feet or
45 feet below sea level the coral reef is at negative 68 feet or 68 feet below sea level and
there are silver gulls flying 50 feet above them they want to know what species is closest to sea
level what does this mean in the scenario it means the depth or elevation that is closest to zero
we can do this by taking the absolute values of each animal's position and then ordering
them from least to greatest so let's do that so starting with the fish we know they're down here
at negative 45. so their location is negative 45 feet if we take the absolute value of that
we get 45 feet from sea level okay next up we have the coral reef so the coral reef is down there at
negative 68 feet and when we take the absolute value of that we get 68 feet perfect and lastly
we have those silver goals so the birds are at 50 feet above sea level and that gives us just
positive 50 feet so we need to order these numbers from greatest to least so what's the
smallest number that's right we have the fish at 45 feet and then what comes next
the next smallest will give us the birds here at 50 feet and then lastly the ones that are
furthest away from the boat or from sea level that would be the coral reef at 68 feet nice work
okay let's look at one more example have you heard of the iditarod it's a big dog sled race in alaska
the dogs who run these races are like athletes they train and eat in certain ways to prepare
for the race the humans who race the dogs have to pay close attention to the weight of the dogs as
the race nears here's how the sled dog's weight has changed in the month leading up to the race
now using this data we want to answer three questions who lost the most who had the biggest
weight change and who had the least or the smallest weight change so the first one which
pup lost the most this means which dog lost the most weight so we are looking for a number that
is the farthest from zero in what direction well lost usually means subtract or negative right so
which of the dogs here has the bigger negative number or the negative number that's farthest
from zero well it's either between nala or yeti is negative four or negative 2.5 farther from 0.
yeah negative 4 is farther from 0 than 2.5 so that means nala lost the most
now this one says who had the biggest change that means which dog had the largest change in weight
does that mean we're looking for positive or negative either one right so to do this let's take
the absolute value of each of the dog's change in weight and the biggest number will be the
biggest change so if we take loki's the absolute value of five is still equal to five for nala
the absolute value of negative four will give us a change of four and yeti the absolute value of
negative two point five will give us 2.5 so which of these numbers is the largest yeah 5 is the
largest so that means loki had the largest change in weight did he gain weight or did he lose weight
he had a change of positive five so that means he gained weight now who had the least change
to do this we want to know the absolute value of each dog's weight and then the least change would
mean the closest to zero so the smallest number so since we already took our absolute values here we
are now looking for the smallest number that would be yeti right 2.5 is the smallest so yeti had the
least change did he lose or gain these two and a half pounds since this is negative that means yeti
lost 2.5 pounds good work i hope you enjoyed learning about the iditarod too look at that
using absolute value in the real world fantastic work you're ready to practice on your own you can
always come back to the videos for a refresher if you need it have fun and remember to always be
clever