Measure

Participate in a classroom discussion suggesting different ways of measuring the classroom.

Write a paragraph explaining the need for standard units of measurement. Give examples of the problems using nonstandard units for measuring.

Write an argumentative/opinion essay about whether the United States should adopt the metric system. Introduce the topic clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support your opinion. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details. This article about the advantages and disadvantages of the metric system may help you begin.

Compare two classroom chairs in terms of height, two books in terms of weight, and two cups of water in terms of volume. Find other items in your classroom that can be compared in terms of measurable attributes.

Compare lengths of three objects in their desks. Have the students order all of their objects by length, shortest to longest, on a table or the floor. Who has the shortest item and who has the longest?

Measure classroom items such as a book, desk, bookshelf, computer screen, carpet, globe, etc. Choose the best tool for each task and tell why you chose it. Compare your measurements with a classmate's.

Create a park or playground on paper. Show the area of the whole park and the area that individual toys or equipment would take.

Use spaghetti noodles for angles. Break noodles into smaller pieces. Glue them onto paper creating angles. Measure the inside of each angle using a protractor.

Using this middle-school lesson as a guide, solve word problems requiring conversion between metric units.

• Weather is the combination of sunlight, wind, snow or rain, and temperature in a particular region at a particular time. People measure these conditions to describe and record the weather and to notice patterns over time.

• Examples of qualitative observations could include descriptions of the weather (such as sunny, cloudy, rainy, and warm); examples of quantitative observations could include numbers of sunny, windy, and rainy days in a month. Examples of patterns could include that it is usually cooler in the morning than in the afternoon and the number of sunny days versus cloudy days in different months.

• Assessment of quantitative observations limited to whole numbers less than 20 and relative measures such as warmer/cooler.

• Examples of properties could include color, texture, hardness, and size.

• Assessment of quantitative measurements is limited to length.

• Scientists record patterns of weather across different times and areas so that they can make predictions about what kind of weather might happen next.

• Examples of data could include average temperature, precipitation, and wind direction.

The patterns of an object's motion in various situations can be observed and measured; when that past motion exhibits a regular pattern, future motion can be predicted from it.

Each force acts on one particular object with both strength and a direction. An object at rest typically has multiple forces acting on it, but they add to give zero net force on the object. Forces that do not sum to zero can cause changes in the object’s speed or direction of motion.

Assessment is limited to one variable at a time: number, size, or direction of forces.

Examples of variables to test could include angle of slope in the downhill movement of water, amount of vegetation, speed of wind, relative rate of deposition, cycles of freezing and thawing of water, cycles of heating and cooling, and volume of water flow.

Nearly all of Earth's available water is in the ocean. Most freshwater is in glaciers or underground; only a tiny fractions in streams, lakes, wetlands, and the atmosphere. Assessment is limited to oceans, lakes, rivers, glaciers, ground water, and polar ice caps and does not include the atmosphere.

The orbits of Earth around the sun and of the moon around Earth, together with the rotation of Earth about an axis between its North and South poles, cause observable patterns. These include daily changes in the length and direction of shadows, and different positions of the sun, moon, and stars at different times of the day, month, and year.

• When the environment changes in ways that affect a place's physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive, others move to new locations, others move into the transformed environment, and some die.

• Populations live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there.

• Examples of environmental changes could include changes in land characteristics, water distribution, temperature, food, and other organisms.

Measurements of a variety of properties can be used to identify materials. (At this grade level, mass and weight are not distinguished.)

• The amount (weight) of matter is conserved when it changes form, even in transitions in which it seems to vanish.

• No matter what reaction or change in properties occurs, the total weight of the substances does not change.

• Examples of reactions or changes could include phase changes, dissolving, and mixing that form new substances.

Examples of evidence can include tables, graphs, and maps of global and regional temperatures; atmospheric levels of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane; and natural resource use.

Examples of evidence include grade-appropriate databases on human populations and the rates of consumption of food and natural resources (such as freshwater, mineral, and energy). Examples of effects can include changes made to the appearance, composition, and structure of Earth’s systems as well as the rates at which they change.

• The complex patterns of the changes and the movement of water in the atmosphere, determined by winds, landforms, and ocean temperatures and currents, are major determinants of local weather patterns.

• Emphasis is on how air masses flow from regions of low pressure, causing weather (defined by temperature, pressure, humidity, precipitation, and wind) at a fixed location to change over time.

Emphasis is on the analysis of data from Earth-based instruments, space-based telescopes, and spacecraft to determine similarities and differences among solar system objects, such as relative size, distance, motions, and features. Examples of scale properties include the sizes of an object's layers (such as crust and atmosphere), surface features (such as volcanoes), and orbital radius.

• Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions. Thus, the distribution of traits in a population changes.

• Emphasis is on using mathematical models to support explanations of trends in changes to populations over time. Examples could include Peppered Moth population changes before and after the industrial revolution.

• Ecosystems are dynamic in nature. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations.

• Emphasis is on recognizing patterns in data and making warranted inferences about changes in populations.

• Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources.

• Emphasis is on cause and effect relationships between resources and growth of individual organisms and the numbers of organisms in ecosystems during periods of scarce and abundant resources.

A simple wave has a repeating patterns with a specific wavelength, frequency, and amplitude. Emphasis is on describing waves both qualitatively and quantitatively.

• When the motion energy of an object changes, there is inevitably some other change in energy at the same time.

• Examples of empirical evidence used in arguments could include an inventory or other representation of the energy before and after the transfer in the form of temperature changes or motion of object.

Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of particles of matter.

Examples of experiments could include comparing final water temperature after different masses of ice melted in the same volume of water with the same initial temperature, the temperature change of samples of different materials with the same mass as they cool or heat in the environment, or the same material with different masses when a specific amount of energy is added.

Examples of devices that use electric and magnetic forces could include electromagnets, electric motors, or generators. Examples of data could include the effect of the number of turns of wire on the strength of an electromagnet, or the effect of increasing the number or strength of magnets on the speed of an electric motor.

• All positions of objects and the directions of forces and motions must be described in arbitrarily chosen reference frame and arbitrarily chosen units of size.

• Emphasis is on balanced (Newton’s First Law) and unbalanced forces in a system, qualitative comparisons of forces, mass and changes in motion (Newton’s Second Law), frame of reference, and specification of units.

Emphasis is on the design, controlling the transfer of energy to the environment, and modification of the device using factors such as concentration of the substance.

Criteria could include amount, time, and temperature of substance in testing the device.

• Each pure substance has characteristic physical and chemical properties (for any bulk quantity under given conditions) that can be used to identify it.

• Substances react chemically in characteristic ways. In a chemical process, the atoms that make up the original substances are regrouped into different molecules, and these new substances have different properties from those of the reactants.

• Assessment is limited to analysis of the following properties: density, melting point, boiling point, solubility, and flammability and odor.