17. If 6 gardeners can mow a lawn in 2 hours, how many gardeners can mow the same lawn in 3 hours?

Let's break it down! If 6 gardeners can mow the lawn in 2 hours, that means they can collectively complete the job at a rate of \(\frac{1}{2}\) of the lawn per hour. To find out how many gardeners are needed to finish the job in 3 hours, we first determine how much of the lawn needs to be mowed per hour: \(\frac{1}{3}\) of the lawn. Since 6 gardeners can do \(\frac{1}{2}\) of the lawn in an hour, it takes them about 1.5 hours to do \(\frac{1}{3}\) of the lawn. Therefore, to mow the entire lawn in 3 hours, you would need 4 gardeners. So, 4 gardeners can mow the same lawn in 3 hours!