Math
Lesson Plan
How Much Gear?
Learning
Objective:
Estimate,
calculate and compare weight/mass and volume within customary and metric
systems.
Teacher
Directions:
To complete this activity, you will need
to pretend two things: 1) You will be actually climbing Mount Everest;
and 2) You are an adult.
You have to deal with many physical challenges when mountain climbing. One challenging task is to carry equipment and climb at the same time. You wear some of the equipment plus need to put some into backpacks. Either way, it adds more weight on top of your body weight. Let’s do a quick activity to figure out how much weight you will be "carrying" up the mountain in both metric and customary units. Here are the questions you will need to address:
-
How much do I weigh in pounds and kilograms (let’s assume that you weigh 150 lbs. as an adult)?
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How do I convert customary and metric quantities?
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What items will I be carrying or wearing that add to my weight?
-
How much does each item weigh in pounds and kilograms? How can I estimate how much these items weigh?
-
How do I convert customary and metric quantities?
-
What percentage of my own body weight will I be carrying?
-
Is this realistic?
-
Can I really carry that amount?
To get started, let’s first convert your weight to metric units. To do this, use the following Web site: Science Made Simple
Type in 150 pounds and convert it to kilograms. Round the answer to the nearest whole number.
Write a list of items that you would either carry or wear that would add weight. Select a list of these items from the following Web site: MNTEVEREST.Net. Click on "Equipment List."
Write these items in column one of the Chart*. In column two, write the estimated weight of each item. One suggestion for coming up with this estimation would be to first use a bathroom scale to simply hold items that you think would be of similar weight and then see how much those things add to your own weight.
Again use the conversion tool at the following Web site to convert from pounds to kilograms. Science Made Simple
Write the converted amount in column three.
Add the total amount of the items you would be carrying or wearing (in both customary and metric units).
Calculate what percentage that amount is compared to your body weight. To calculate this percentage, you will need to divide the total amount of what you will be carrying or wearing by 150 pounds (and the equivalent in kilograms).
Is it realistic for you to carry this amount? To experiment to find out, try accumulating that same percentage of weight of your own real weight. How easy or hard is it to carry? Can you imagine carrying it for miles as you climb up a mountain?
Resources:
Science
Made Simple
MNTEVEREST.Net
Activity
Sheet:
Chart*
Assessment:
Math
Assessment Sheet*
* pdf document (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free from Adobe)