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Science, Gr. 9
Atoms & Elements – Working with the Metric System
Metric Conversions Worksheet I
Going up the table
move the decimal to
the left
T
G
M
k
h
teragigamegakilohecto-
Going down the table
move the decimal to
the right
NO PREFIX
c
m
μ
n
1 000 000 000 000
1 000 000 000
1 000 000
1 000
100
1012
109
106
103
102
1
101
1
100
1
1 000
centimillimicronano-
10-2
10-3
10-6
10-9
1
1 000 000
1
1 000 000 000
These are the metric
divisions of quantity. The
letter in the first column is
used as the prefix before the
type of quantity. Some
common types of quantity
are grams (g), metres (m),
joules (J), seconds (s), and
bytes (B).
EXAMPLES
1.0 kg = ? mg
1.000000 kg = 1 000 000 mg
2.3 cm = ? m
centi and no prefix differ by two zeros;
centi  no prefix is going up the table;
therefore move the decimal two places to the left
002.3 = 0.023 m
From
km
kilo and milli differ by six zeros;
kilo  milli is going down the table;
therefore move the decimal six places to the right
To
prefix
quantity
kilo
metres
m
Gg
Mg
Mg
Gg
mL
L
kJ
mJ
μs
ms
B
kB
cm
mm
cL
μL
mJ
cJ
prefix
quantity
no prefix
metres
Zeros
Move decimal
difference left or right?
3
right
PROBLEMS
1. Convert the following to grams (g):
Before
Rewrite with extra
converting zeroes
Number
Move to
After
of zeroes left or
converting
difference right?
1.0 kg
g
2.5 kg
g
0.045 kg
g
100 mg
g
2400 mg
g
2. Convert the following to metres (m):
Before
Rewrite with extra
converting zeroes
Number
Move to
After
of zeroes left or
converting
difference right?
4 mm
m
15.6 km
m
0.005 Mm
m
1,000,000
μm
m
2400 mg
m
2. Convert the following to kilojoules (kJ):
Number
Move to
Before
Rewrite with extra
After
of zeroes left or
converting zeroes
converting
difference right?
1600 J
kJ
2050 cJ
kJ
Science, Gr. 9
Atoms & Elements – Working with the Metric System
Metric Conversions Worksheet II
1. Convert the following to km:
1600.0 m
= _______
245 565 mm = _______
2050 cm
= _______
20 099 m = _______
1.033 Mm
= _______
499 m
= _______
2. Convert the following:
10.034 mJ
= _______________ cJ
36.45 cL
= ______________ μL
0.05 cm
= ______________ mm
1024 B
= ______________ kB
0.0325 kJ
= ______________ cJ
1202.5 mL
= ______________ L
0.42101 Gg = ______________ Mg
25.5 km
= ______________ m
0.12907 cm = _____________ mm
756 900 μs
= ______________ ms
5600.4 Ms
268 000 cm = ______________ km
= _____________ Gs
Science, Gr. 9
Atoms & Elements – Working with the Metric System
Metric Conversions Worksheet III
Convert the following:
0.0075 Gm
= _______________ km
0.00091 TL
= ______________ ML
0.00046 ks
= ______________ cs
244475.3 μs = ______________ hs
4096 MB
= ______________ GB
210 hm
= ______________ cm
0.0002 μg
= ______________ mg
448.5 cg
= ______________ g
0.00034 μL = ______________ cL
2103.55 s
= ______________ ks
11120.33 ng = ______________ cg
0.0000012 GL = ______________ cL
Word Problems
1. The distance from here to the airport is 0.0000075 Gm. How far is this in km (a quantity that we
are more used to talking about)
2. There are 10 computers in the computer lab that each have 20 GB hard drives. How many bytes
(B) of disk space do we have in the computer lab in total.
3. A challenge: convert 100125368477004 ng to Teragrams.