Be a Meter Leader
Working with tools is a common place to use metric length measurements the United States. Using millimeters and centimeters can be easier to calculate than fractions of an inch. Aside from that, you might not see lengths measured in meter units much. In the the United States, we use miles to determine distance traveled, while the rest of the world measures distance traveled by kilometers.
Working Metric Length Conversions
As we discussed on the metric capacity page, metric conversions are quite simple. You move along your metric chart to determine your conversion.
For example, if you walked 100 meters, that would be equivalent to 1 hectometer. That same 100 meters would only be 1/10 of a kilometer though.
If you were measuring that 100 meters in millimeters, you would multiply 1,000 by 100 because it takes 1,000 millimeters to equal just 1 meter.
Metric Length Example
Tamara ran in four 5k events this summer. A 5k is five kilometers. How many meters total did Tamara run in 5k events this summer?
