1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Measurement & Data
CCSS.Math.Content.4.MD.A.1 Know relative sizes of measurement units within one system of units including km, m, cm; kg, g; lb, oz.; l, ml; hr, min, sec. Within a single system of measurement, express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Record measurement equivalents in a two-column table. For example, know that 1 ft is 12 times as long as 1 in. Express the length of a 4 ft snake as 48 in. Generate a conversion table for feet and inches listing the number pairs (1, 12), (2, 24), (3, 36), ...
CCSS.Math.Content.4.MD.A.2 Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale.

2. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?
© Sean Pavone/Alamy
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?
Locals simply call it Brasstown Bald, though it’s officially Brasstown Bald Mountain, a peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains about 100 miles north of Atlanta, Georgia. At the peak is an observatory offering incredible views of the hills, forest, and, on clear days, the tallest buildings of the Atlanta skyline.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?1
Web Search
Find a list of units of height online. Brainstorm what you might measure with each of them. 2
What units are mountains usually measured in? Search online to find a few examples. 3
Web Search/
Thinking
Make a two-column conversion table comparing three different units of height. Are there any of these you think it would not be appropriate to describe a mountain with? 4
Image Search
Find different images of Brasstown Blad Mountain. Do they give you a sense of how to describe its height? Why or why not? 5
Why might the country you’re in affect the units you use to measure height?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?1
Web Search
Find a list of units of height online. Brainstorm what you might measure with each of them. 2
What units are mountains usually measured in? Search online to find a few examples. 3
Web Search/
Thinking
Make a two-column conversion table comparing three different units of height. Are there any of these you think it would not be appropriate to describe a mountain with? 4
Image Search
Find different images of Brasstown Blad Mountain. Do they give you a sense of how to describe its height? Why or why not? 5
Why might the country you’re in affect the units you use to measure height?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?1
Web Search
Find a list of units of height online. Brainstorm what you might measure with each of them.
(Possible queries: “list of units of measurement”, “measurement unit chart”).
From
Answers will vary but may include inches, feet, yards, miles, meters and kilometers, among others. Students should then brainstorm what these units may be appropriate for. For example, an inch would be an appropriate unit to measure the height of a water bottle, but probably not an appropriate unit for measuring the height of a skyscraper.

8. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?2
Web Search
What units are mountains usually measured in? Search online to find a few examples.
(Possible queries: “height of Mount Washington”, “height of Mount Kilimanjaro”).
Students should search to find the heights of a few mountains they are familiar with and note what units are used to describe them. For example, the Bing Search Bar has the height of Mount Kilimanjaro listed as 19,341 feet or 5,895 meters and the height of Mount Washington as 6,288 feet or 1,917 meters. In other words, feet and meters are the key units.

9. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?3
Web Search/
Thinking
Make a two-column conversion table comparing three different units of height. Are there any of these you think it would not be appropriate to describe a mountain with?
(Possible queries: “how many inches are in a foot?”, “how many feet are in a meter?”, “how many feet are in a yard?”).
Answers will vary. For example:
Inches Feet Meters
Students should think about what units they chose may or may not make sense to describe a mountain with. In this particular example, they might note that already 3 feet is 36 inches, and mountains are much more than 3 feet, so inches would probably not be an appropriate unit to use.

10. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?4
Image Search
Find different images of Brasstown Blad Mountain. Do they give you a sense of how to describe its height? Why or why not?
(Possible query: “Bing/Images: Brasstown Blad Mountain”).
Images found here:
Students should discuss if these images give them a sense of how to describe Brasstown Bald’s height. Answers may vary. Some students may notice that it’s hard to know how tall the mountain is without comparing it to other things (a house or a person, for example). Others might find images where there are objects of scale that help to explain how tall the mountain is in comparison.

11. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?5
Web Search
Why might the country you’re in affect the units you use to measure height?
(Possible queries: “units of measurement in U.S.”, “units of measurement outside U.S.”, “why does the U.S. have a different measurement system?”).
From
US customary units are the official units used in the US. These are similar to the British imperial units and also based on the units used in the United Kingdom from before American Independence. But some of the units are different to the British ones. For example, there are 20 imperial fluid ounces in an imperial pint, but 16 US fluid ounces in a US pint. Additionally, the US fluid ounce is slightly bigger than the imperial fluid ounce. The result is that US pints and gallons are smaller than imperial pints and gallons. In the United States, the metric system has been legal for trade since 1866 but other measurements such as the gallon, inch, and the pound are still widely used.
Imperial and US units of measurement include:
Length –inch (in), foot (ft), yard (yd), and mile.
1 foot = 12 inches
1 yard = 3 feet (plural of foot) = 36 inches
1 mile = 1760 yards = 5280 feet

12. What do you think is the best unit to use to describe the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question. Students should pull together the information to determine that feet are most likely the best units for describing the height of Brasstown Blad Mountain. They should note that feet seem to be on the right scale (bigger than inches, smaller than miles) for a mountain, and that because the mountain is located in the US (in Georgia specifically), feet rather than meters would be more appropriate to use since the U.S. does not follow the metric system.