Foundations- Lesson 110 – Metric Units of Capacity and Weight
Metric units of capacity and weight: Weight we would use a gram. A gram is a
metric unit to measure the weight of lighter objects. Now if we wanted to measure the
weight of heavier objects, we could use, if you’ll take a look, a kilogram. A kilogram is
bigger than a gram.
For capacity, we would use a liter. A liter is a metric unit used to measure the
capacity of larger objects. A milliliter, if we use the word liter here instead of our gram, is
used to measure the capacity of smaller objects. So a liter, if we replace the word gram,
would be bigger than a milliliter.
We want to do some conversions. What we could so is, if we want to know
twenty-seven kilograms, how many grams that is. What we do is we take a look at our
twenty-seven kilograms and we would notice that we would have to move three places to
the left. Since we’d have to move three places to the left, we know that after twentyseven there is a decimal place after the number. What we will need to do since we moved
three places to the left, we will need to move our decimal place three to the right. So
twenty-seven kilograms would give us twenty-seven thousand grams. Another way we
could do this is that we know since it’s kilograms that there’s one thousand grams in each
kilogram. We could say that there are one thousand grams for one kilogram, and that
would equal, we’d want to know how many grams that is, and we have twenty-seven
kilograms. So if we have our grams on top and then what we’d need to do is crossmultiply, so we would have twenty-seven thousand equals one times N. Divide both sides
by one and we would have twenty-seven thousand grams.
You want to convert two point seven liters and know how many milliliters that is.
What you can do is take a look at liters and see how many places it is to move to
milliliters. Take a look. It’s one, two, three places to the left. So it’s three places to the
left, so you’ll need to move our decimal place three to the right. There’s one, two, and
then there’s your third. So we would have two thousand seven hundred milliliters. So just
remember that weight is in grams and capacity is in liters. Remember you can always use
your table up here to convert. If you have to move to the left, that means you have to
move your decimal that many places to the right.