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Catalyst: Small scale measurements

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Drawing of person lying face down, text reads "the Planck length"
Catalyst: Small scale measurements

SUBJECTS:  Maths

YEARS:  5–6, 7–8


What units of measurements do we use to describe incredibly small things like blood cells and atoms?

Watch as you are taken on a journey to explain the different units of measurement that we use to describe the very small.


Things to think about

  1. 1.How tall are you in centimetres (cm)? Make an estimate if you are not sure. What would that be in millimetres (mm)? To convert from cm to mm multiply by 10. So if you were 178 cm tall in mm you would be 1780 mm (178 x 10). What is your height in metres?
  2. 2.The length of an ant is described in mm. One mm is one thousandth of a metre. As a power of ten this is written as 10^-3. A red blood cell is measured in micrometres. What fraction of a metre is that equal to? What unit of measurement is used to describe the depth of the groove in a CD? How do you write that unit as a power of 10?
  3. 3.Create a visual representation of the objects you viewed in the clip up to the carbon atom. Write down the size of each object using the correct units. Add the symbol for each unit of measurement. Describe each as a fraction of a metre using powers of ten.
  4. 4.Create a chart showing examples of metric prefixes such as giga (G), mega (M), kilo (k) and nano (n). Provide examples to show multiples or fractions of a unit of measurement such as metre, gram or litre. Include a range from one billion (10^9) down to one billionth (10^-9).



Date of broadcast: 25 Aug 2011


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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