MMSD Mathematics Content Standards for Measurement
Introduction | Grade 6 | Grade 7 | Grade 8
Wisconsin’s Model Academic Standards (WMAS) Standard D:
Measurement, 1998 (p. 10)
Students in Wisconsin will select and use appropriate tools (including technology) and techniques to measure things to a specified degree of accuracy. They will use measurements in problem-solving situations.
Measurement is the foundation upon which much technological, scientific, economic, and social inquiry rests. Before things can be analyzed and subjected to scientific investigation or mathematical modeling, they must first be quantified by appropriate measurement principles. Measurable attributes include such diverse concepts as voting preferences, consumer price indices, speed and acceleration, length, monetary value, duration of an Olympic race, or probability of contracting a fatal disease.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (PSSM)
Measurement, 2000 (pp. 240-247)
Students bring to the middle grades many years of diverse experiences with measurement from prior classroom instruction and from using measurement in their everyday lives. In the middle grades, students should build on their formal and informal experiences with measurable attributes like length, area, and volume; with units of measurement; and with systems of measurement.
Important aspects of measurement in the middle grades include choosing and using compatible units for the attributes being measured, estimating measurements, selecting appropriate units and scales on the basis of the precision desired, and solving problems involving the perimeter and area of two-dimensional shapes and the surface area and volume of three-dimensional objects. Students should also become proficient at measuring angles and using ratio and proportion to solve problems involving scaling, similarity, and derived measures.
Measurement concepts and skills can be developed and used throughout the school year rather than treated exclusively as a separate unit of study. Many measurement topics are closely related to what students learn in geometry. In particular, the Measurement and Geometry Standards span several important middle-grades topics, such as similarity, perimeter, area, volume, and classifications of shape that depend on side lengths or angle measures. Measurement is also tied to ideas and skills in number, algebra, and data analysis in such topics as the metric system of measurement, distance-velocity-time relationships, and data collected by direct or indirect measurement. Finally, many measurement concepts and skills can be both learned and applied in students’ study of science in the middle grades.