Activity #2

How Big Is a Foot?

by Rolf Myller

Activity taken from Teaching The Tools of Science, Brian Tash1996

Measuring with Hand-Spans

1. Open your hands as wide as you can. The distance between your thumb and your little finger is called a span.

2. Trace both of your hands on a piece of paper. Cut out your handprints.

3. Select 3 objects that you would like to measure. The unit of measure will be the hand-span. Estimate the length of the object in hand-span units.

4. Find the actual length in hand-spand units.

5. What was the difference between your estimate and the actual length?

6. How would the size of your hand affect your measurement?

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