1. The Metric System Teaching and Learning the Metric System Through Science

2. Everyday Measurements Measurement happens all around you. Can you identify common measurements in daily life?

3. A History of Measurement

4. Historical Measurement Early systems of measurement were totally based on body parts. The Egyptian used units: Digit—the width of a finger Palm—the distance across four fingers Span—the distance from pinky to the tip of thumb when hand is extended Cubit—the distance from the elbow to the tip of middle finger

5. Historical Measurement continued…. The English used units of measurement that were set up by kings, queens, and other rulers The measuring device called a ruler is probably based on a king’s foot size Queen Elizabeth the First’s arm was used as the value of a yard, 36” Finally, in the 1700’s, the French standardized a system of measurement with the meter as the basic unit of length

6. The Meter! The meter was defined as one 10 millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator. It’s been refined since then, but it’s about 3.29 feet, or 39.25 inches. The metric system is based on powers of 10. Its so simple; just like regular numbers in your math class For measuring length greater than a meter, we use multilples of 10, but for our purposes, we only care about a few multiples: One Kilometer---1000 times (kilo means 1000 in Latin) the length of a meter = about 0.6 miles.

7. Small Measures of Length For measuring lengths smaller than a meter, these units are used: Centimeter---1/100 of a meter = about 0.4” (cents = 1/100 dollar, right?) Millimeter---1/1000 of a meter = (milli = 1/1000) which = 1/10 centimeter

8. Prefixes to Remember SI means “System International” Since the SI/Metric system is based on powers of ten, we need to learn some Latin prefixes that tell us how big or small the measurement is in relation to the base unit.

9. We apply these prefixes to the base unit: The meter, the gram or the liter There are three prefixes to remember for all these powers of ten. They are (there are others, but we only care about these): kilo Base Unit Centi- Milli- X 1000 1 1/100 1/1000 0.01 0.001

10. What that means Kilo means there are 1000 of the base units Centi means 1/100, which also means there are 100 hundredths in a whole base unit Milli means 1/1000, or 1000 thousandths in the whole base unit

11. So, what’s next?

12. Why, Units of Mass ! Mass is a more precise way of saying weight. Mass is the same everywhere, on earth, in space, on another planet. Weight is the force a mass creates in a particular gravity field From a practical standpoint, they are the same on the earth’s surface

13. The Gram The gram is the basic unit of metric mass A kilogram is what? It’s 1000 x a gram (kilo means x 1000, remember?) A kilogram (often kilo for short) is about 2.224 pounds A milligram (you see it in medicine) is 0.001 (1/1000) gram, pretty small

14. Which Leads us to Metric Volume Measurement The basic Metric/SI unit of volume is the Liter = about 1.1 quarts The other smaller unit we use is the Milliliter (milli = 0.001 or 1/1000, remember) which is 0.001 liter A milliliter = a cubic centimeter of pure water, that is, a cube one cm on a side The mass of one milliliter or one cubic centimeter of water = 1 gram, so one liter of water = one kilogram of mass So, you see the metric system is all tied together logically