Fractions are important because people use them everyday in activities like cooking, carpentry, sports, sewing and driving. For example, cooking involves using measurements of ingredients given in fractions, such as 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar or 1/4 teaspoons of salt.
In construction or carpentry, precise measurements are important to build houses or cutting lumber for home projects. Similarly, a driver needs to know what distances, such as a half-mile or quarter-mile represent. In the high jump, the height jumped by competitors is given in fractions, such as 3 1/2 feet.
Fractions are important in many other professions, such as for pharmacists and seamstresses. Its also necessary for students to learn fractions so they can take higher order math courses like algebra, where the topic of rational expressions involves adding and subtracting expressions in fraction form.
