6th Grade Math Textbook, Progress

Update your skills. See page 20.

Measure Metric Length

13-1

1 meter(m) 
10 decimeters (dm)

1 m 
100 centimeters (cm)

1 m 
1000 millimeters (mm)

1 kilometer (km) 
1000 m

You can use a centimeter ruler

to measure length to the nearest

centimeter or millimeter.

On this ruler, the distance

from one tick mark to the

next is 1 millimeter:

1 cm
10 mm.

Think

A
B
is about 4 cm long.

A
B
is 42 mm long.

You can use a meterstick to measure greater lengths,

widths, or heights.

You would need 1000 metersticks

laid end to end to measure

a 1-kilometer long bridge.

Metric units of length are related by powers of 10. Each unit has tentimes the

value of the next unit to its rightand one-tenththe value of the next unit to its left.

thousands hundreds tens ones tenths hundredths thousandths

1000 100 10 1 0.1 0.01 0.001

kilometer hectometer dekameter meter decimeter centimeter millimeter

(km) (hm) (dam) (m) (dm) (cm) (mm)

Multiplyby a power of 10 to rename Divideby a power of 10 to rename

larger units as smaller units. smaller units as larger units.

7 km
 m 240 cm
 m

7 km
(7 1000 ) m
7000 m 240 cm
(240 100 ) m
2.4 m

??

To rename one metric unit to another (short way):


Count the number of places from the

known unit to the new unit in the table.


Move the decimal point the same number

of places in the same direction.

30.5 m
 km

From meters to kilometers,

move 3 places left.

30.5 m 
 0 .030.5 km

30.5 m 
0.0305 km

?

cm^12345

cm^12345

A B

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