Proportional Reasoning:

Fish Tank
Problem
Molly Legg, Whitney Jira, and Makayla Elliott
 “Mathematics is not about
numbers, equations,
computations, or algorithms:
it is about understanding.”
-William Paul Thurston
 One fish tank can hold 5
fish. How many fish can
fit in 10 tanks?

Student Demographics:
The students who were asked the
question were...

● Age: 6 and 7 years old

● Grade Level: First Grade
 Brief Overview of Responses

Scale Factor Scaling Up Unit Rate Additive No Strategy

Number
of
Responses 0% 50% 0% 20% 30%

*We gathered 10 student responses for the chart above*

50% of responses
found a method to
reach the correct
answer
Scaling Up
Increase the number of goldfish and tanks by continuing to
add 5 fish to one tank until you reach 50 fish
Student B:
Scaling Up

Also used the

correspondence
between 5 fish per
tank. This student
struggled with the
word gallon, so we
changed the
wording of the
question. They
eventually got to
the answer by
counting by 5’s.
Student A:
Scaling Up

This student
corresponded 5
fish to one tank
until they
reached 10
tanks. They found
the answer by
gradually adding
up with this
correspondence.
Student C:
Scaling Up

Correspondence
between 5 fish per 1
tank. Counted by 5’s.
Student D:
Scaling Up

Knew that there

were 5 fish in 1
tank so found
how many fish
were in 10 tanks.
Student E:
Scaling Up

Student knew
that all they had
to do was count
up by fives until
they had done it
10 times, giving
them the answer.
Additive
Adding the numbers given
Student F:
Additive

Student simply
added 5 + 10,
which gives the
incorrect answer
of 15. This shows
that they did not
understand that
there were
multiple tanks
with multiple fish
in each.
No Strategy
Student G:
Incorrectly
perceived
the question

Thought there
were 10 fish and
had to divide up
the 10 fish.
Reflection

● Surprised:
○ the attempt of the problem
● Moving Forward:
○ Encourage them to try new strategies
○ Access to manipulatives
○ Practice sorting
● Implications as Future Educators:
○ Incorporate number talks
○ Word problem wording (excluded the word gallons)
■ Unit Rate Example: If 10 fish were in 2 tanks. How many
fish would you have if you had 10 tanks?
Comparison to 5th Grade
First Grade Fifth Grade

No Strategy
Scale Factor

Additive
Scaling up
Unit Rate
 Thanks!
Are there any questions?