Measurement

This week we discussed various units of measurement and various types of measurement. For example, we talked about measuring in bps, metres, kg, and minutes as well as how to calculate area, perimeter, and speed. I'm going to discuss in this post some of the activities I found to be the most engaging for students.

Video Clip

The first activity is a video by John Green called 36 Unusual Units of Measurement. It discusses bizarre (but very real) units of measurement that are no longer commonly used. This video can lead into discussions surrounding what it means to be a unit of measurement (i.e. everyone needs to agree what 'one' of the unit is, but other than that they can be fairly arbitrary) and some other units of measurement not often discussed in schools (ex: GB).



I showed this video to the class I'm observing and got mixed reviews. Some students absolutely loved the video since they read a lot of John Green books. Others simply enjoyed the content and some didn't pay any attention to it. Some of the students who enjoyed the clip were more interested in the gadgets behind Green than the content he was presenting, but either way almost all of the students were making connections with the video and this will (hopefully) translate into more engagement with measurement and better recall of the information they learned that lesson. 

Estimation and Measurement Activity

The second activity I found quite interesting was one where students first estimate how far they can jump, and then 'test' their estimation. I've sketched a sample aerial view of the activity as well as the worksheet below: 

MacCuish (2015). 
MacCuish (2015). 
The above activity is an example of the 'guess and check' method of problem solving as well as alternative methods of measurement. For example, the instructions can be explicitly to measure in something other than conventional units (i.e. cm, m). It's an engaging way of (hopefully) getting students excited about measurement.  

Manipulating Shapes

The final activity we discussed in class was one around manipulating the relationship between perimeter and area. It involves a shape made up of some square unit of measurement and then asks you to change the area without changing the shape. For example: 

MacCuish (2015). 

The above example gets students working with shapes and begin to understand how perimeter and area interact. It would act as a discovery-style question and would (hopefully) get students thinking outside the box and become less fixated on math being about getting the right answer.

I posed this question to the grade 7 class I'm observing and the students were very interested in it. I think the break from their normal worksheets was exciting for them. They were able to get the answer fairly quickly which boosted their confidence, so I would provide a few more questions of increasing difficulty.


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