LESSON: Measuring Units

READ: Equivalent Metric Units of Length

Equivalent Metric Units of Length

This lesson focuses on metric units of measurements. In the United States, we use the customary system of measurement more than we use the metric system of measurement. However, if you travel to another country or complete work in science class, you will need to know metrics.

What are the metric units for measuring length?

To measure length, we are measuring how long something is or you could say we are measuring from one end to the other end. That is the length of the item.

Here are the metric units of length from the smallest unit to the largest unit.

A millimeter is the smallest unit. Millimeters are most useful when measuring really tiny things. You can find millimeters on some rulers.

A centimeter is the next smallest unit. They can also be found on a ruler.

A meter is a little more than 3 feet. A meter is the unit that would be very helpful to a carpenter or to someone working in construction.

A kilometer is used to measure longer distances. You often hear the word kilometer mentioned when talking about a road race that 5k or 5 kilometers long.

How can we convert metric units of length?

When working with the customary units of length, inches, feet, etc, we know that we can convert them or change the units we are working with. For example, if you have 24 inches, it might make more sense to say that we have 2 feet. We can do the same thing when working with metric units.

Here is a chart to help us with the conversions.

Metric Unit	Equivalent To:
1 centimeter (cm)	10 millimeters (mm)
1 meter (m)	100 centimeters (cm)
1 kilometer (km)	1000 meters (m)

Example 1

5 km = ____ m

Here we are converting kilometers to meters. How can we convert larger units to smaller units? We can convert larger units to smaller units by multiplying.

There are 1000 m in one kilometer.

$5 \ km &= \underline{\;\;\;\;\;\;\;\;\;\;} \ m\\ 5 \times 1000 &= 5000 \ m$

Our answer is 5000 m.

Example 2

600 cm = ______ m

Here we are converting smaller units to larger units. How can we convert smaller units to larger units? We can convert smaller units to larger units by dividing.

There are 100 cm in one meter.

600 $\div$ 100 $=$ 6

Our answer is 6.