Unit 1: Measurement

Have you ever wondered why people from older generations often talk about distances in miles when all of the road signs in Canada are in kilometres? Or why some of them refer to capacity in gallons when most containers are labelled in litres or millilitres?

Fairly recently, Canada converted from an older British system of measurement to a newer metric system of measurement. The British system is still in use in Canada, so it is important for Canadians to be familiar with both systems of measurement.

Lesson 1.1 Referents

Lesson 1.1 video link clickhere. (Video under development.)

For a large part of history, standardized measuring tools such as rulers and tape measures didn't exist. Where do you suppose the ideas for measuring tools came from? How could someone make measurements without using such tools?


In Lesson 1.1, you will learn about

  • referents that can be used to estimate linear measurements

Warm Up

Suppose you live in a place that has no tools for measurement. There are no rulers, scales or anything else designed to take measurements. Now suppose you want to describe the size of an object to someone who has never seen that particular object. Could you do it?

Briefly describe how you could communicate the following measurements to someone:

  • The thickness of a particular tree trunk
  • The perimeter of a town
  • The amount of water required for a recipe
  • The mass of a bag of fruit
  • The temperature of the water in a lake
 You will come across Warm Up activities at the beginning of lessons and Investigation activities within lessons. Neither of these are to be submitted for marking, but both are important to your understanding of the lesson and need to be completed.