1. 
 Must have a standard.
 A standard is an exact quantity people agree to use
for comparison.
 A standard means two people using the same object
should get close to the same results.
Measurement

2. Standards of the past
 People used to use
parts of their body to
determine the length
of something.
 The standard would
be a part of the king’s
anatomy.
 The standard yard
was the distance from
the king’s nose to his
outstretched arm

3. People would use their feet to measure
distance
 This is how the term
foot came about.
 Today the standard
“foot” in the English
system is
 12 inches = 1 foot

4. The English system is very confusing
because it has so many different values

5. 
America is the only country that still
uses the old English system

6. 
Scientists give the English system the
thumbs down
Scientists needed an exact and uniform system of weights
and measurements

7. 
How did the metric system come
about?
 During the18th century
scientists measured the
distance from the
earth’s equator to its
North Pole and divided
it into ten million parts.
 This is how they came
up with the length of
the standard meter.

8. 
The Meter
 The standard for the meter is kept in a safe in France.
 The meter stick is a replica of that standard
 A meter is made up of 100 centimeters and 1000
millimeters

9. 
 Scientists needed a way to measure liquids so they
took 10 cm and multiplied it by its length x width x
height to come up with a standard for measuring
volume
 The liter is the size of 10 cm(3)
 10cm x 10 cm x 10 cm
 Length x Width x Height = Volume
 The liter is used to measure liquids
How the liter came
about

10. 
How the Gram came
about
 Scientists needed a
standard to measure
mass.
 Mass is the amount of
matter in an object
 They decided to take
one cubic centimeter of
water and call it a gram

11. The time standard
 During the 15th
century a scientist
named Galileo set the
standard of time
known as the second

12. 
The Mistake
Two different groups of
scientists were working
on the calculations to
send a probe to Mars.
The American team did
their calculations in the
English standard and the
other team did it in the
metric system (OOPS!)
 MARS

13. 
 This made scientists
very upset.

14. 
 Kilo means thousand (1000)
 Hecto means hundred (100)
 Deca means ten (10)
 Deci means one-tenth (1/10)
 Centi means one-hundredth (1/100)
 Milli means one-thousandth (1/1000)
Metric chart

15. 
 The Meter- Measures length
 Length is the distance between two points
 The Liter –Measures Volume
 Volume is how much space a liquid takes up
 The Gram- Measures mass
 Mass is how much matter is in an object
Copy This Down

16. 
 How to use the metric chart
 Rewrite the problem
 Check for the decimal (if no decimal, put at end)
 Where do we start? Put pencil their
 Were do we go to?
 # of hopes and direction
 Do the same with decimals
Metric chart

17.  kilo hecto deca UNIT deci centi milli
(meter, gram or liter)
How the metric system
works
•100cm = ___ m100cm = ___ m
•100cm = 1.0 m100cm = 1.0 m
•6.9mm = ___cm6.9mm = ___cm
•6.9mm = .69 cm6.9mm = .69 cm