How much is 10 times more? A 1/10 of? The answer depends on what your whole is. In our opening lesson introducing powers of ten, we did an investigation using the book Actual Size by Steve Jenkins as our anchor text.
Our first task was to determine the size of an average fifth grader in our class. Students lined up from shortest to tallest and we found the median height which was 60 inches (5 feet) and represented by the brown paper outline.
The book's closest animal that was 1/10 of 5 feet was the Goliath Beetle.
Using a long hallway and yarn to mark the length,
we measured 50 feet!
Students were challenged to visualize what 10 Time MOre of the Squid would look like! We knew we would have to go outside as the commons area in our building would still be too short.
We also discussed how if we would have started with the Goliath beetle as our whole, we could have easily determined 100 times more length but it would have been difficult to represent 1/100 the size of the Goliath Beetle.
