Election Math

This week we had an opportunity to read about the recent election results. In order to get a clearer picture of the results, our class made mathematical word problems using the background information and statistics from the article. Here are a few of the problems students came up with:

• How many more seats do the Conservatives need to get a majority (using the information from the article they have 143 seats, a majority government is 155 seats)?

• The conservatives had 124 seats in the last election. They won 143 seats in this election. How many more seats do they have?

• If the Liberal party (77 seats) and Bloq party (49 seats) united, would they be able to form a majority government?

• If the Green party gained 5 seats every election, how many years until they get a majority if they have elections every 2 years?

Our explorations also led to discussions on the differences between a majority and minority government and the concept of regional representation.

-Michael