Measurements are crucial to everyday life. It is important to be able to convert measurements to maintain accuracy and avoid confusion. This is particularly important when you are working with equations to ensure a correct answer.
You use measurements when you:
build or construct something
time a race
drive somewhere
pave a garden
do a scientific experiment
work out medical dosages.
Working through this page will help you:
understand what measurements are used for
understand the pattern behind converting measurements within a unit measurement
know the different unit conversions for converting between different unit measurements.
Understanding measurements
Watch
In Australia, we use the Metric System (also known as the International System of Units). Measurements could be of linear value, area or volume.
Metric measurements are multiples of 10 of the base unit. The most common base units you will come across are grams, metres and litres. The video will explain what you use each of these for. It uses the example of converting metres to millimetres, but the underlying theory can be used for conversions of any type from the base unit – metre, litre, gram. That is, we multiply to go from the larger unit to the smaller unit and divide to go from the smaller unit to the larger unit.
You can also convert different units of measurements. These are called unit conversions. They express an equal amount but use a different unit of measurement. For example, 60 seconds = 1 minute. 8km = 5 miles. 12 inches = 1 foot.
Download the document below. It will be useful to have it on your computer in case you need easy access to these conversions.
Check your understanding
Try these review tasks to check your understanding.
Drag the blue figures next to the unit of measurement that they match.
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