You can
put this solution on YOUR website!I've just posted a brand new lesson plan explaining Metric System that you might be interested in seeing. It's in algebra.com under Geometry: Length and Distance. You need to know that Metric System is much easier to work with than the English system, and the vocabulary is much simpler as well. The lesson plan goes into this in great detail. For now, all you want to do is convert from one distance measure to another.
First, the basic unit of measure for distance is the meter. From here, everything is measured in terms of 10, 100, 1000, or 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000 th of a meter. Here are the other measures in order from largest to smallest. I call this the metric line:
____|_______|______|_______|_________|______|_______|______
----Kilo----Hecto ---- Deka ---- Basic Unit ----Deci ----Centi ----Milli
------ k ----- h -------- dk -------- m, l, g ------- d ------- c ------- m
-- 1000 --- 100 ------- 10 ----------- 1 -------- 1/10 ---- 1/100 ---- 1/1000
Now, to convert from basic unit of meters to centimeters, you must move to the left from the Basic Unit to the Centi which is 2 units to the left. Therefore, you must move the decimal 2 units to the left.
If you convert from say millimeters to centimeters, this is 1 unit to the right, so move the decimal 1 unit to the right.
To convert from centimeters to millimeters, this would be 1 unit to the left, so move the decimal 1 unit to the left.
To convert from kilometers to centimeters, this will be 5 units to the rigth, so move the decimal 5 units to the right.
To convert from cenimeters to kilometers, move 5 units to the right.
In summary all you have to do is figure out which direction you move, and how many places. That's it!!
There's the lesson plan. Here are your problems:
(1) 6.8cm= how many mm? Move 1 place to the right = 68 cm
(2) 10mm= how many km.? Move 6 units to the left =0.00001 km (four place holder zeros!)
(3) 0.14mm = how many m.? Move 3 places to the left = 0.00014 m
(4) 5dm = how many cm? Move 1 place to the right = 50 cm
(5) 0.89cm= how many km? Move 5 places to the left = 0.0000089 km.
Check my math--I make a LOT of mistakes, and someone may have to catch one for me here!!
R^2 at SCC
