Suppose each student gets x pounds of clay.
Given that the teacher has 70 1 / 2 pounds of clay and 20 students. Each student will get an equal amount of clay.
Therefore,
[tex]\begin{gathered} 20x=70\frac{1}{2} \\ 20x=\frac{141}{2} \\ x=\frac{141}{40} \\ =3\frac{21}{40} \end{gathered}[/tex]So, each student gets
[tex]3\frac{21}{40\text{ }}pounds[/tex]