options: Number & Operations in Base Ten: students learn to work with the base-ten system and build place value understanding.

Operations & Algebra: students learn to solve problems using algebraic thinking and operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They may learn to identify and explain arithmetic patterns, evaluate or manipulate numerical expressions, and reason with equations and inequalities.

Counting & Cardinality: students learn to know number names and the count sequence, count to tell the number of objects, and compare numbers.

Statistics & Probability: students learn to analyze and produce data distributions, and build understanding of univariate and bivariate data. They learn to interpret data, make statistical inferences, justify conclusions, understand rules of probability, and use probability to make decisions.

Measurement & Data: students learn to work with data and measure attributes such as time, money, length, area, and volume. They may learn to compare measurements to operations and convert between different units of measure.

Geometry: students learn to classify geometric figures by their properties, and understand and compare the relationships between them. Students develop and use formulas to compute lengths, areas, and volumes, and they use transformations to generate new shapes and compare existing ones. Geometry can be studied with and without coordinates.

Functions: students learn to define, use, and evaluate functions to model relationships between quantities.

Number Systems and Quantity: students learn to understand the complex number system and reason quantitatively.

Number & Operations - Fractions: students learn to understand fractions as numbers and may work with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Modeling: students learn to choose and use appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze real-world empirical situations, improve decisions, and report on their conclusions and the reasoning behind them.

Ratios & Proportional Relationships: students learn to recognize, describe, represent, and reason with ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and percent.
problem_activity: Warm-up
This warm-up prompts students to attend to precision in measurements, which will be important in upcoming work.
Launch
Arrange students in groups of 2. Give students 1 minute of quiet think time to estimate the size of their own foot in centimeters or inches, and a moment to share their estimate with a partner. Then, ask them to complete the task.
Student Facing
If a student uses a ruler like this to measure the length of their foot, which choices would be appropriate measurements? Select
all
that apply. Be prepared to explain your reasoning.
[IMG]
\(9\frac14\)
inches
\(9\frac{5}{64}\)
inches
23.47659 centimeters
23.5 centimeters
23.48 centimeters
Here is a scale drawing of an average seventh-grade student's foot next to a scale drawing of a foot belonging to the person with the largest feet in the world. Estimate the length of the larger foot.
[IMG]
Student Response
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Anticipated Misconceptions
Some students may say the large foot is about
\(3\frac12\)
inches or about 9 centimeters long, because they assume the ruler shown in the first question is at the same scale as the feet shown in the second question. Explain that the images are drawn at different scales.
Activity Synthesis
Select a few students to share the measurements they think would be appropriate based on the given ruler. Consider displaying the picture of the ruler for all to see and recording students' responses on it. After each response, poll the class on whether they agree or disagree.
If students consider B, C, or E to be an appropriate measurement, ask them to share how to get such a level of precision on the ruler. Make sure students understand that reporting measurements to the nearest
\(\frac{1}{64}\)
of an inch or to the hundred-thousandths of a centimeter would not be appropriate (i.e., show that the ruler does not allow for these levels of precision).
Choice E of 23.48 cm may merit specific attention. With the ruler, it is possible to
guess
that the hundredths place is an 8. This may even be correct. The problem with reporting the measurement in this way is that someone who sees this might misinterpret it and imagine that an extremely accurate measuring device was used to measure the foot, rather than this ruler. The way a measurement is reported reflects how the measurement was taken.
Next, invite students to share their estimates for the length of the large foot. Since it is difficult to measure the length of these feet very precisely, these measurements should not be reported with a high level of precision; the nearest centimeter would be appropriate.


correct_option_index: 5