1. The Measurement System of Science
SI Units
(the Metric system)
The Measurement System of Science
Do these mean anything to you?
Kilo:
kilometer, kilogram
Centi:
centimeter, cents, century
Deca
Decathlon, decade

2. Base Units
The International System (SI -- Le Système International d’Unités) has seven base units:
Length (meter - m)
Mass (kilogram - kg)
Time (second - s)
Amount of a substance (mole - mol)
Temperature (kelvin - K)
Electric Current (ampere - A)
Luminous Intensity (candela - cd)
ADD Volume (liter – L) – not really an SI unit!

3. Prefixes -- gives it meaning!
There are eight prefixes that you will need to know for the SI units: Abbrev.
Mega (1,000,000 x base; M
1 mega-base = base)
kilo (1000 x base; 1 kilo-base = 1000 base) k
hecta (100 x base; 1 hecta-base = 100 base) h
deca (10 x base; 1 deca-base = 10 base) da
deci (base/10; 10 deci-base = 1 base) d
centi (base/100; 100 centi-base = 1 base) c
milli (base/1000; 1000 milli-base = 1 base) m
micro (base/ ; /u
micro-base = 1 base)

4. So what? How do we use them?
Any SI unit has two parts:
prefix
base
For example,
kilo-gram
kilo-meter
centi-meter
centi-gram
So, what do we call 10 grams?
deca-gram
What do we call .001 seconds?
milli-second
How about .1 liters?
deci-liter