HISTORY OF MEASUREMENT
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
It was the Greeks who developed the "foot" as their fundamental
unit of length. Legend has it that this Greek unit was based on an
actual measurement of Hercules' foot.
People measured a yard of cloth by the distance between the end of the outstretched arm and their chin.
The Romans measured their pace steps, of about 2.5 feet, 1000 double paces formed a mile.
It was evident that everyone's body was different sizes. This caused confusion in measurement.
The French created a standard unit of measurement called the metric system in 1790.
This is today's international system of unit for measurement.
HOW DOES THE METRIC SYSTEM WORK?
NO LONGER MUST YOU REMEMBER THE RELATIONSHIPS SUCH AS:
12 inches to a foot or 3 feet to a yard
THINK OF THE METRIC SYSTEM IN TERMS OF TEN.
Changing one unit to another for a given measurement means moving the decimal point.
The Point of the Decimal
The metric system uses prefixes to indicate units larger or smaller than a given base unit. Each prefix is a multiple of 10.
| kilo | km | one thousand | 1000
|
| hecto | hm | one hundred | 100
|
| deka | dam | ten | 10
|
| deci | dm | one tenth | 0.1
|
| centi | cm | one hundredth | 0.01
|
| milli | mm | one thousandth | 0.0001
|
USING UNITS "METER" FOR MEASURING LENGTH
1. Centimeter (cm). A finger is about 1 cm wide. Examples
2. Millimeter (mm). 1 centimeter=10 millimeters Examples
3. Meter (m). 1 meter=100 centimeters. Examples
4. Kilometer (km). 1 kilometer=1,000 meters. Examples
5. Choose millimeters, centimeters, meters, or kilometers. Examples
6. Convert the units of measurement.Examples
GOOD JOB!!!
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