Oh how I love measuring...
STORY TIME: I am a body measurer through and through. I use my hands, arms and feet to measure things all the time. As someone with a partner who is extremely OCD when it comes to things being centered and straight, I can proudly say that I am very good at my body measuring. I hung Christmas lights all through the hallway of our house, draping from one side to the other, perfectly distanced hooks were confidently installed, using my head as a "center" from both my hands (yes we checked it after, it was quite accurate). This was not meant to be a abstract way of measuring, this was simply a "I don't feel like finding a measuring tape, nor do i feel like actually spending time measuring, I got this" moment. Reading this short except on different body types used to measure, I then realized that I do this a lot...
 |
| My beautifully spaced ceiling hooks for Christmas lights! |
ACTIVITY: As I sit here in my kitchen, my love-for-projects brain thinks about what my next update in my kitchen may be. As I look around, I realize that I used my feet when I measured to see if my new table would fit before I bought it. Not to brag but I have a almost-perfect-foot foot, so measuring with my feet is quite easy. I decided to consider a back splash, as we don't have one right now. Using my arms and hands for convenience, I found that my backspace is roughly 14.5 cubit's squared. Rough translation to m^2, that about 7.25m^2. This was with a little extra, since when purchasing material you always account for a few little errors! This MAYBE took me 35 seconds to measure, far quicker than finding a measuring tape, measuring, and doing the math... just saying!
EXTENSION: This strategy can be used for almost anything, I used it for spacing in my garden last spring, I use it to decorate for holidays, for figuring out how much supplies I need, for hanging things on the wall, you name it. I love the idea of teaching students how to use such a practical and useful way of measuring. I did a massive garden project last year and would love to incorporate this into it as a modification and upgrade to the unit this year. This could also be a fun way to show the uniqueness of using our own bodies, everyone measures the same thing with their own self, and then we compare how many hands/feet/cubits/etc. everyone got and then see if when converted to standard measuring units, how accurate was everyone?!
Your ability to use body measurement is indeed impressive!
ReplyDeleteLike you, I also like to make my students use body measurement for class activity. I used this activity with my grade 9 group to introduce them to 'two-eye seeing': learning the strength of both Indigenous ways of knowing and Western mathematics (Meyer & Aikenhead, 2021). We then discuss the usefulness of both system and in which situation are they more efficient. When my Naskapi colleague is teaching me how to sew, she always uses body measurement. Like you, she has a pretty good idea of how much is the width of her finger, the length of her hand, the length of her foot, etc.
Reference:
ReplyDeleteMeyer, S., & Aikenhead, G. (2021). Indigenous culture-based school mathematics in action: Part I: Professional development for creating teaching materials. The Mathematics Enthousiast, 18(1), 100–118. https://doi.org/10.54870/1551-3440.1516
I love your idea of having students measure the same thing with their own bodies and then converting it to standard measuring to see how accurate they are! Will absolutely be using this in the classroom soon! I can see how this could also support ideas of estimation and the benefit of alternative perspectives not only for fuller understanding but also for the convenience they can provide as well.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! And I'm a lot like you on this, Taylor -- I always prefer to start from body measurement in practical daily measurements. It is impressive how well you know your own feet, hands, head, etc. and how accurate and 'rhythmic' you can be in putting up the Christmas lights, measuring the table, etc. Special props for convincing your highly accurate partner too! Two-eyed seeing is such a wonderful way to approach these two qualitatively different forms of measurement as well. Both have contexts where they are just the right thing to use -- and understanding the contexts for accuracy/ standardization and approximation/ idiosyncratic measures is an important kind of critical and cultural understanding that we can teach explicitly.
ReplyDelete