Lesson 3 Metric Conversion and Multiplication by Powers of Ten

    • Let’s notice patterns in metric measurements.

Warm-up Number Talk

Find the value of each expression mentally.

Activity 1 How Tall? How Long? How Far?

image of students running over hurdles

  1. Complete the table.

    meters

    centimeters

    millimeters

  2. What patterns do you notice in the table?

  3. Three long-distance races are 10 kilometers, 100 kilometers, and 1,000 kilometers. How many meters are there in these races?

    distance in kilometers

    distance in meters

  4. What patterns do you notice in the table?

Activity 2 Broad Jump

Problem 1

image of girl jumping

Here are the distances that each student jumped.

student

distance

Mai

1.61 meters

Tyler

1.43 meters

Clare

1.57 meters

  1. The average standing broad jump distance for 5th graders is 148 centimeters. Are each of the students in the table below, at, or above the average? Explain or show your reasoning.

  2. The world record for the standing broad jump is 337 centimeters. Jada says that’s more than Mai and Clare jumped combined. Do you agree with Jada? Explain or show your reasoning.

Problem 2

Tyler says his jump sounds more impressive if he reports it in millimeters.

  1. How far is Tyler’s jump in millimeters? What about Mai’s and Clare’s jumps?

  2. Which unit do you think is best for reporting the jumps? Explain your reasoning.

Practice Problem

Problem 1

  1. How many centimeters are in each measurement?

    0.12 m

    3.5 m

    19 m

  2. How many millimeters are in each measurement?

    3 m

    37 m

    1,915 m

  3. How does a whole number of meters change when it is converted to millimeters?