Happy new year everyone! A lot can happen in one year — or even in just one hour, or minute, or second. Witheach second that ticks by, 4 babies are born, 2 people die, and Earth travels 18 1/2 miles through space. 60 sets of this happen every minute, and then 60 sets of that every hour, and then 24 hour-long sets every day…that gives us more than 31 million seconds in a year. Let’s see how much happens to us this year!
Wee ones:How long does just 10 seconds feel? To find out, count from 1 to 10 with the word “alligator” after each number!
Little kids:If your cousin just got baby twin sisters, how many more babies were born that same second?Bonus:If in one second 4,000 stars (4 thousand) are born but 1,000 other stars blow up, how many total new stars do we have after that second?
Big kids:If every second we have 2 more people total than before, how many more people should Earth have after the 31,000,000 seconds this year? (That’s 31 million.)Bonus:A secret number of babies is born in your town. If you double that number and add 5, you get 31. How many babies were born?
The sky’s the limit:Just to add to the pile, Americans supposedly eat about 10 billion donuts a year.About how many donuts is that per second? (Hint if needed:A billion is a thousand millions.)
Answers:
Wee ones:Count 1 alligator, 2 alligator, 3 alligator…up to 10 alligator.
Little kids:2 other babies.Bonus:3,000 stars (3 thousand).
Big kids:62,000,000 more people (62 million, or about 1/5 of the U.S. added on!).Bonus:13 babies, since it’s half of 26, which is 5 less than 31.
The sky’s the limit:300 donuts per second. If they ate 10 per second, that would be 310,000,000…if they ate 100 per second, that would be about 3 billion, so they eat about 3 times as much as that, or 300.
