You now know what a scale drawing and a scale model is, how to calculate information about scale drawings, and have drawn scale drawings. This activity will show you more about how scale drawings and models are used in everyday life.

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As you have already learned, a scale drawing can also be called a blueprint. These are used to build such things as buildings, computer parts, and vehicles.

Before any vehicle is built, a scale model is produced. This is used to check the vehicle for wind resistance and also just to see what it will actually look like. This saves millions of dollars if a flaw is found, such as if a new type of car doesn't have proper airflow around it. The same thing is done with planes, ships, and even spacecraft!

You see these scale models every time you enter a toy store. The model that you purchase to build at home is probably pretty similar to the scale model that was originally built. The only difference is that the model you build at home will probably have more detail in it, such as an interior. Car model kits are often accurate representations of real vehicles, except that models are much smaller than actual vehicles. These model kits often include the scale of the model on the box.

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Scales can be used for other things in daily life as well. Have you ever looked at a map of Alberta? Somewhere on the map there is a scale. This shows how many times the map has been reduced.

Scales can be shown as ruler measures:

  Courtesy of ADLC

The actual distance that 1 cm represents on a map is 20 km.

 1 cm:20 km

 For every 1 cm, the actual measurement is really 20 km in distance.

If you go and look at a map of your town or county, the scale will be different. A smaller scale (1:1,000 instead of 1:1,000,000) allows the mapmaker to put more detail in the map.