Name_________________________
Date_____________
Period________
ACTIVITY - METRICS AND INSTRUMENTATION
For this lab activity, you and a lab partner will collect metric
measurements about different classroom objects. After you collect all
your data, answer the analysis questions associated with the activity.
SHOW ALL WORK USED TO DETERMINE ANSWERS (even if you
used a calculator you must have punched in a sequence of button to
let your calculator determine the answer- remember our tools are only
as good as the user!
Length
Use a measuring tape or meter stick to measure how tall you are as
well as how wide is your wingspan (fingertip to finger tip).
1. Height cm. convert to
2. Wingspan
m
cm convert to __________ m
3. Was Da Vinci was he correct that a person’s height is the same as his/her wingspan? Check with
several students and explain why or why not
_________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
__________________
4. Use a ruler and meter stick to measure the width of your assigned lab sink. Use the ruler for the
centimeter measurements and the meter stick for the meter measurements.
Sink Height
cm. convert to
m
Sink Width
cm. convert to
m
Sink Length
cm. convert to
m
Volume
5. 1 cm3 equals 1 ml. Using your length measurements, determine the volume of water that the sink
could hold in Liters.
6. Human body contains about 12 pints of blood. How many liters of blood would that be? Don’t forget to
show your work and units.
_________________
7. A human bladder can contain approximately 600 mL or urine as a maximum volume, but the desire to
urinate begins at ¼ of that volume. Use an Erlenmeyer flask to measure out this bath-break triggering
volume, so it to your instructor.
Teacher’s initials:________________
8. The average tear volume in a healthy person is about 6.5 µl.. How many tears would fit in a 10 ml
graduated cylinder. (show your work) I’ve shown you below how to set up the kind of mathematical
equation manipulation we use in science to do conversions. It’s called, “Unit Factor Analysis”. Setting
equations up this way should result in cancelling out the units until we are left with the correct units we
need for our answer.
Mass
Check the units of mass that the electronic balance is measuring. If it does not say “grams”, change the
setting until it is measuring in grams. Zero out the balance so that it reads “0.0 g”. Place small beaker on
the balance.
9. Record the mass of the smaller empty beaker provided for you one of the lab tables. Be sure it is dry.
Don’t forget the correct units.
10. Use the graduated cylinder to place exactly 40ml of water in the beaker. Determine the mass of the
beaker and water to the nearest tenth of a gram and record that in your data table.
Measurement of Mass Table
Object
Beaker #2
Mass
Beaker #2 plus 40ml of water
11. Calculate the mass of 40ml of water based on the data in your table
12. Calculate many ml of water you’d have to lose, in order to drop 5 lbs in a workout. Use the equation I
gave you in question #9.
Temperature
13. The average human’s body temperature is 98.6°F. What is your body temperature
in °C? To change Fahrenheit to Celsius use the following formula: °C = (°F - 32) x
5/9
14. The body’s core temperature is usually slightly different from the extremities like under the tongue.
One way to accurately measure the core temperature is from under the armpits. Use a scientific
thermometer to measure your core body temperature. What is your core body temperature in
Fahrenheit?. [°F] = [°C] × 9⁄5 + 32
Conversion Tables