The middle school band has 56 members. the high school band has 96 members. the bands are going to march one after the other in a parade. the director wants to arrange the bands into the same number of columns. what is the greatest number of columns in which the two bands can be arranged if each column has the same number of marchers? how many band members will be in each column? explain how you did it

First, we have to find the highest common factor, and that involves a bit of guess and check - I personally started with the highest factors from 56 and worked my way from there, finding 8. If there were 8 people per column, there would be 12 columns for the high school (96/8) and 7 for the middle school (56/8). If there were 8 columns each, you'd switch the numbers around so there would be 12 people per column for the high school and 7 for the middle school