Exploring London Olympics gold medals using fractions, decimals and percentages

Syllabus links

Key Stage 2 (age 7 to 11)

What can you learn about the London Olympics from the medal table?

Purpose

This experiment gives children an opportunity to practise rounding decimal numbers to the nearest hundredths place, converting decimals to fractions and percentages, and writing fractions in their simplest forms.

The child will learn about fractions using real-world data.

You need to know

You will need

a sheet of paper
some paper
a pencil
a pencil
a calculator
a calculator (optional)

Steps

  1. Print or copy the table shown below:

    Top 20 gold-winning countries in the London Olympics

    Position Country Gold medals won Decimal Percentage Fraction Fraction in simplest terms
    1 United States of America 46
    2 People's Republic of China 38
    3 Great Britain 29
    4 Russian Federation 24
    5 Republic of Korea 13
    6 Germany 11
    7 France 11
    8 Italy 8
    9 Hungary 8
    10 Australia 7
    11 Japan 7
    12 Kazakhstan 7
    13 Netherlands 6
    14 Ukraine 6
    15 Cuba 5
    16 New Zealand 5
    17 Islamic Republic of Iran 4
    18 Jamaica 4
    19 Czech Republic 4
    20 Democratic People's Republic of Korea 4
    21 Rest of the Countries 55
    Total — — — —
  2. Work out the total number of gold medals and write it in the last row of the table.
  3. For the Decimals column, fill in what part of all gold medals went to each country. Round your answers to the nearest hundredths place.
  4. Convert the decimals into their percentage forms. Put your answers in the Percentages column.
  5. Convert the decimals into fractions. Write your answers in the Fractions column.
  6. Convert the resulting fractions into the simplest forms. Write your answers in the Fractions in Simplest Forms column.

Questions

  1. Out of all gold medals, what part in decimals did the USA win?
  2. What part in decimals did all the countries not belonging to the top 20 get?
  3. What percentage did the Great Britain team win?
  4. What percentage did the top 5 countries win?
  5. Michael Phelps won 4 gold medals. What percentage of gold medals did he win?
  6. For every 10 gold medals, how many did the Great Britain win?
  7. What is the fraction, written in simplest form, of medals won by the top 5 countries?

Expected answers

  1. There were 302 medals in total.

    0.15

  2. 0.18

  3. 10%

  4. 50%

  5. 1%

  6. 1

  7. 1/2

    Position Country Gold medals won Decimal Percentage Fraction Fraction in simplest terms
    1 United States of America 46 0.15 15% 15/100 3/20
    2 People's Republic of China 38 0.13 13% 13/100 13/100
    3 Great Britain 29 0.10 10% 10/100 1/10
    4 Russian Federation 24 0.08 8% 8/100 2/25
    5 Republic of Korea 13 0.04 4% 4/100 1/25
    6 Germany 11 0.04 4% 4/100 1/25
    7 France 11 0.04 4% 4/100 1/25
    8 Italy 8 0.03 3% 3/100 3/100
    9 Hungary 8 0.03 3% 3/100 3/100
    10 Australia 7 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    11 Japan 7 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    12 Kazakhstan 7 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    13 Netherlands 6 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    14 Ukraine 6 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    15 Cuba 5 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    16 New Zealand 5 0.02 2% 2/100 1/50
    17 Islamic Republic of Iran 4 0.01 1% 1/100 1/100
    18 Jamaica 4 0.01 1% 1/100 1/100
    19 Czech Republic 4 0.01 1% 1/100 1/100
    20 Democratic People's Republic of Korea 4 0.01 1% 1/100 1/100
    21 Rest of the Countries 55 0.18 18% 18/100 9/50
    Total 302 1.0 100% 100/100 1

Explore further (optional)

    Expand the table to include silver and bronze medals.

    Alternatively, you may group the medals according to sports.

Tips for further exploration

    You should be able to find the medal counts by searching the Internet.

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