Lesson 7

The purpose of this lesson is for students to make sense of the relative size of meters and centimeters and to express meters in terms of centimeters.

In earlier grades, students measured and estimated lengths in centimeters and meters to develop a sense of each. They learned that there are 100 centimeters in 1 meter. This lesson helps students see the relationship between centimeters and meters in terms of multiplicative comparison (MP7). Building on their work in previous lessons, students recognize 1 meter as being 100 times as long as 1 centimeter. They use this understanding to convert measurements in meters into centimeters.

What evidence do you have that students are thinking conceptually about “100 times as many” and not simply adding zeros to the end of a number without reasoning?