Measurement homework in a math textbook… horribly out of scale.
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What’s the issue here? Your ruler is metric, not centimeter-cubic. 🤷
I’d like to thank all the people that think the representations in math problems should be or are to scale for my quite impressive SAT scores, it helped a lot in my college admissions to have you all for comparison, and I slept through half of high school so I really needed that.
Most of the time, those who accept the lie will go farther in society. They’re not just testing your scholastic aptitude, but also your compliance.
How many lights do you see, Picard?
That’s why they took centimeter cubes.
They just didn’t draw the z axis which is where the difference is.
Crappy unit choice. For clarity I would cross out “centimeter cubes” and write “milliliters”, or just put the length as roughly 1/50 of a pint
This would appear to be testing the concept of length from position 1 to position 2, helping students to understand that measuring from zero is not a necessity. I don’t think they intended proper ruler measurement.
I don’t like the use of the word ‘cubes’ when ‘squares’ would have been just fine though.
Having taught math to young kids, I used cubes at the beginning to give a real feel to the numbers. Having tangible items to play with gave them a real world demonstration of how numbers work.
And when the kids grasped the physical manipulation, I would transition to paper exercises like you are looking at. And I would call those squares “cubes.” because doing so linked the physical with the abstract. And for some students, to suddenly switch terms could be confusing at first.
Teaching is about linking back to things the student already knows and is comfortable with.
They’re cubes, but the scaling errors are inconsistent.
We used centimeter cubes when I was a kid. Actual plastic cubes. We could use it to add length, we could use it to add volume.
For an illustration of using them for adding lengths, a 2D certainly is fine. They know what the cubes looks like, and a 3D version would just add lines they would have to ignore. Unnecessary complexity.
As an adult who knows how basic addition and basic length measurement works, I would agree with you. The cubes are simplified to squares, that’s the correct name.
But for these kids that doesn’t know the difference of the terms and don’t need it yet, it’s another simplification to avoid unnecessary complexity.
Except it muddies meaning for no apparent reason.
I don’t like the use of the word ‘cubes’ when ‘squares’ would have been just fine though.
I don’t like either because they are actual units of measurements for volume and surface, respectively.
They provided you with the scale to measure the marker. You were not supposed to bring in a second, different scale.
I wasn’t supposed to unravel their whole conspiracy. But here we are, the truth laid bare, and I can’t unsee it.
Those are squares, not cubes
The kids work with actual physical cubes in class. The consistency is way more important than pedantry
How would using physical cubes make learning measuring less confusing?
It lets them use a consistent reference for counting, as well as 1D, 2D, and 3D measurements. They also give something to learn with tactilely, rather than just an abstract set of ideas.
Basically lock the idea of measurements in with the cubes. Then, only when they are confident, split them off into counting and the dimensional concepts.
It works very well for a lot of children.
It starts by using cubes for counting
Technically, they could be cubes as seen from directly above.
Does it really matter if you write down a length in squares or in cubes? 😂
Cubes implies you’re working in 3 dimensions as in 10 cm³
It’s definitely in the “lies to tell children to help them learn” category. The concept of length Vs counting is only just being taught here. The difference between dimensional cubes is a bit beyond most of them.
Maybe someone hit the 110% size on a copy machine?
It’s a bound textbook!
Eh, could also just be ‘assume each box is 1 cm’ without intending to be accurate.
Now if they said use a ruler to figure it out and they claimed it’s 10 then there’s an issue where someone needs a new tool
That’d be my guess. Lot of potential scaling issues in print.
One of my exes was really into making clothing. I learnt second hand (via venting) how difficult it is to get a printer to print
1cm=1cmaccurately when you buy a “pattern” (basically a tracing you follow to chop up the fabric).They would check every printout, and half the time they had to print the same thing multiple times because the printer decided to be stupid and add a half centimetre here or there or subtly stretch it; which matters a lot for a good fit. It was a whole big thing, apparently. At least for cheap printers.
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They printed on paper to later re-trace the shape on fabric manually
But the squares that are supposed to be a cm and the ruler below it are printed on the same page, they scale together.
At least it looks like a printed ruler to me.
I just hope you had a good ruler, and not a printed ruler from your home printer. If this is aprinted ruler, I am not sure which print made the mistake, as in home printers it is very difficult to get things at exact measurements.
I wondered the same thing.It’s not “very difficult”. You just cognizant of the scale your ruler is drawn on and scale you are printing it, i.e. not have printer auto scale it for example.
Is that a lightsaber hilt?
No need, the math question already killed the youngling.
I dont see anything wrong with it. The unit is defined as a “centimeter cube” which is a non-standard unit so while it is not really a great unit definition, it would still be correct.
I could just randomly divide the scale in equal length sections, say one section is a “squelchon ” and the marker would be 17 squelchons long.
That’s how measurements based upon human appendages came to be ;)
EDIT: of course I mean squelchons and not squenchons (completely different unit) ;)
See, inconsistent scale has you confusing squenchons and squelchons. The difference should jump out at you.
