🔑 Key Concepts
- A unit rate tells how much there is for 1 unit.
- Do not automatically divide the bigger number by the smaller number.
- Set up the rate in the order the question asks.
- If the question asks for hours per kilometer, put hours over kilometers.
- When the denominator is the unit you want to make 1, simplifying the fraction can give the unit rate.
✏️ Worked Examples
🧠 Math Vocabulary
- Rate: a ratio that compares two quantities with different units.
- Unit rate: a rate that compares a quantity to 1 unit of another quantity.
- Per: a word that means “for each” or “for every 1.”
- Numerator: the top number in a fraction.
- Denominator: the bottom number in a fraction. In many unit rate problems, this is the unit being changed to 1.
💡 Main Idea
When finding a unit rate, the setup matters. Do not just divide the larger number by the smaller number. Read the question carefully to decide which quantity goes on top and which quantity goes on bottom. If the rate forms a fraction, simplifying that fraction may give the unit rate directly.
📚 What You Should Already Know
Students should know how to write fractions, simplify fractions, divide whole numbers, and understand that “per” means “for each one.”
🚀 What Comes Next
After finding unit rates in fraction form, students can apply the same idea to decimal unit rates, prices per item, speed, constant rates of change, and proportional relationships.
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