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April 17, 2005
Math Activity 2- Just How Far ?
Jason will be traveling across the seas using nautical measurements. How can we land lubbers understand how far he is traveling? By using "conversion" tables to help us out. For example...
A nautical mile is based on the circumference of the planet Earth. If you were to cut the Earth in half at the equator, you could pick up one of the halves and look at the equator as a circle. You could divide that circle into 360 degrees. You could then divide a degree into 60 minutes. A minute of arc on the planet Earth is 1 nautical mile. This unit of measurement is used by all nations for air and sea travel.
A knot is a unit of measure for speed. If you are traveling at a speed of 1 nautical mile per hour, you are said to be traveling at a speed of 1 knot.
A kilometer is also defined using the planet Earth as a standard of distance. If you were to take the Earth and cut it in half along a line passing from the North Pole through Paris, and then measure the distance of the curve running from the North Pole to the equator on that circle, and then divide that distance by 10,000, you would have the traditional unit for the kilometer as defined in 1791 by the French Academy of Sciences.
A nautical mile is 1,852 meters, or 1.852 kilometers. In the English measurement system, a nautical mile is 1.1508 miles, or 6,076 feet. How does this compare to the standard (statute) measure of a mile in feet?
To travel around the Earth at the equator, you would have to travel (360 * 60) 21,600 nautical miles, 24,857 miles or 40,003 kilometers.
Use the lesson activities below to fill in the conversion table. First you will practice using a conversion table to convert units you know, then you will use the information above to create a conversion table of your own.
Here are some interesting links:
Lesson Activities:
Materials:
calculator
unlined paper
pencils/colored pencils
pedometer/odometer
Procedure:
Use the attached table listing the length for nautical miles, statute miles, and kilometers in meters and feet based on the information given in "Just How Far?" Download Worksheet ( To save it to your computer right click and choose Save target as and choose where you want to save it. Open it using Microsoft Word.)
Complete the chart of the following conversions:
inches to centimeters multiply by 2.54 (example: 2 in. X 2.54= approx. 5 centimeters)
centimeters to inches multiply by 0.39 (example: 5 centimeters X 0.30=approx. 2 in.)
feet to meters multiply by 0.30 (example: 9 feet X 0.30= 2.7 meters)
meters to feet multiply by 3.28 (example: 2.7 meters X 3.28= 8.9 feet)
Then complete the second chart on the worksheet by changing nautical miles to miles and kilometers using the information given in the Just How Far section of this lesson.
When you have completed the worksheet, share what you have learned with your class, and attach a copy of it to an email to Barb.
Additional Activities:
Using a car odometer (or a pedometer to measure walking distances), measure the distance from your home to a selected destination, i.e. school. Record the distance in your journal.
Using a calculator and the chart of conversions you made in the preparation section, convert the number of feet/meters you traveled to meters/feet.
Demonstrate the difference between the distances on a line, example: show the number of feet on a line. On a second line, compare the difference between the lengths of metric and standard measure.
Informational Links:
Posted by april at April 17, 2005 4:35 AM
Comments
In our group we worked on changing Nautical miles to Meters, Kilometers, Miles, and feet. From our classroom it was .006 Nautical miles to the bathroom. First we measured in feet to the bathroom. We got 36 feet and divided 36 by 6,076 to get Nautical miles. It came out to be .006 Nautical miles. We also found out other units of measure. These were easy to find after finding out the amount of Nautical miles.
We also chose to measure to Pueblo. Since Pueblo is about 30 miles from our school, we divided 30 by 1.1508 to get Nautical miles. It was 26 Nautical miles. From there we figured out our other measurements.
Posted by: Rudy, Kaley, Jon, Garrett, Katya, Curtis at May 5, 2005 8:52 PM
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