From Feet to Fathoms

From Feet to Fathoms Lab Activity by Hanna Rhoads, Helene Le Roux, and Anja Obradovic: 6a, 5/12/11

History:  English units are the historical units of measurement in medieval England which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units. They were redefined in England in 1824 by a Weights and Measures Act, which retained many but not all of the unit names with slightly different values, and again in the 1970s by the International System of Units as a subset of the metric system.  (From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_units)

Guiding Question:  What is the importance of having an International measuring system? 

It is important for trading and selling things in the market and also for making clothes and cooking measurements play a big role in our lives

How accurate are old measurements using body parts?

Not very accurate some people have bigger/smaller arms of legs so the measurements vary from who you are buying/trading/making clothing for.

Hypothesis:  I think that the old measurements are not accurate hardly at all but only for a few people and not all the time because people grow.

Materials:

·         Partners

·         Objects in the classroom (whiteboard, desk, hallway, SPACE book, Peep, Crayon box)

·         List of ways to measure: 

Pace:  legs outstretched =1 yard approximately or 1 meter

Egyptian cubit= elbow to tip of the middle finger= 18 inches or 45 cm

Fathom = middle finger to middle finger across the body = 6 feet, 180 cm, 1.8m

Palm = across the palm of the hand = 3 inches or 8 cm

Hand including thumb = 4 inches or 10 cm

Span = from tip of thumb to tip of little finger= 3 palms or 9 inches or 24 cm

English yard = from fingertip of arm to nose = 36 inches or about 1 meter

Foot = 12 “or 30 cm approximately

Fingernail = tip of pinky =1/2 inch = 1 cm.

·         Meter stick or measuring tape

·         Calculator

Procedure: 

1.       Make a data table in your notebook with 7 columns and 7 rows.  (See below).

2.       Choose one of the six objects or distances you will measure.

3.       Determine what form of measurement you will make with the first object. (For example:  Length of the 6^th grade hallway with paces, book with palm or hand, fingernail for crayon box, etc…)

4.       Measure it with the determined form of measurement 3 times, and then find the average. 

5.       Measure it with the meter stick/or measuring tape and find the actual measurement.  (IMPORTANT!!!!!  BE SURE THAT THE UNITS OF MEASUREMENT STAY THE SAME, either inches or centimeters or yards or feet or meters and the average needs to be in the same units)

6.       Repeat the same for each of the five objects that are left and measure it with a different type of measurement, 3 times, find the average and again the actual measurement.

7.       Compare class data results.  Find the average of these results. 

Record & Analyze

Material	Measurement	Anja	Helene	Me	Average	Real
Crayon Box	Fingertip	8.5cm	18cm	8.5cm	11.7cm	9.30cm
Whiteboard	Fathom	330cm	330cm	320cm	327cm	252cm
Peep	Span	11.3cm	12cm	11cm	11.43cm	17cm
Hallway	Pace	9.3m	10m	10.3m	9.8m	6m
Desk	Cubit	120.3cm	140cm	125cm	128.4cm	137cm
Stonehenge Book	Palm	40.3cm	40cm	32cm	37.4cm	32cm

Data Analysis: 

All of the measurements vary from person to person so these are not very accurate and most are completely inaccurate to the modern more solid measurements. It seems a lot of the time that the old measurements are a little bigger than the modern measurements.

Conclusion:  How effective were the old English forms of measurement compared to using the meter stick or measuring tape?

They were close to never accurate.

  What is the importance of having an International measuring system?

It is important to trade and sell to tourists.

  Answer the guiding question here. Was your hypothesis correct in the beginning?  If no, what do you think now?

It was correct!

 Which objects were the easiest or most accurate to measure? 

The book and the crayon box.

Which form of measurement did you prefer the most?

I prefer the modern English system.

  State why for both questions.  Give examples to help you explain.

I grew up with inches and yards and miles.

Further inquiry: What improvements would you make next time?

MUCH MORE communication!

 What errors did you and your group make?

We didn’t communicate enough so I ended up with different measurements than Anja and Helene.

 Do you have any further questions about measurement?

Not really I’ve read lots already so I think I’ve learned most of it.