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M: Measures, statistics and data handling
Here you will find additional support, guidance, activities and ideas for every sub-section in M Measures, statistics and data handling. If you’re accessing these pages via the QR codes in the book, the cloud symbols will help you locate where ideas and activities expand discussion in the main text of the book.
M1 Measures and measurement
page 147
Food Prices Averagesin the UK and spend per household
The 5:2 diet
Healthy eating food charts are available
As are food apps
Great British Chefs: Kids
More ideas page 152
Use a clip from a video, read an episode of The Borrowers or an excerpt from a story such as The BFG, Mrs Pepperpot or Thumbelina to get started.
M2 Data handling and using the media
More ideas page 159
Re-duce, Re-use, Re-cycle. What about Re-fuse, Re-think, Re-pair?
Aluminium recycled indefinitely?
Save a tree
Carrier bag madness
Put a brick in it
M3 Statistics and probability
Weather Folklore site: How often are these predictions true?
Old Wives’ Tales & Folklore: To be taken with a pinch of salt and some adult and new age themes, but informative.
Online version of the “Pass the Pigs” game
Ecocide and Polly Higgins In March 2010 international barrister and award-winning author Polly Higgins proposed to the United Nations that Ecocide be the 5th Crime Against Peace. Ecocide is the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished
CIMT MEP Program Y5/6 These Probability Simulation programs have been designed in order to allow teachers and students to simulate probability experiments over a long period of trials
The “It’s a long way to Tipperary” sheet is available in the Resources section
M4 Using personal measurement
Leonardo's Vitruvian Man with the text translated giving all the proportions and units used.
M5 Investigating measurement
page 168
Word Lists and Glossaries Jenny Eather’s excellent resources
Dictionary of Units “This dictionary provides an account of the principal units of measurement to be found in use around the world today, and the conversion factors often needed to change them into ‘standard’ units of the SI system.” – Frank Tapson
page 171
Flexi balls cane joiners around 70p each
1m cubed definition
Human Scale teaser film
Stand magnifiers and graticules, if you can find them cheaply.
page 172
Make your own timelines
TimeTree, the timescale of life, also available as a free app.
Fractals and the coastline of Britain
Carl Sagan on Cosmic Calendar
page 173
Grains of rice on a chess board: there are many versions of this tale
Coins and laws for coinage
page 175
How to make a candle clock
The Life of King Alfred by Asser Bishop of Sherborne (888CE) After long reflection on these things, he at length, by a useful and shrewd invention, commanded his chaplains to supply wax in a sufficient quantity, and he caused it to be weighed in such a manner that when there was so much of it in the scales, as would equal the weight of seventy-two pence, he caused the chaplains to make six candles thereof, each of equal length, so that each candle might have twelve divisions marked longitudinally upon it. By this plan, therefore, those six candles burned for twenty-four hours, a night and day, without fail, before the sacred relics of many of God's elect, which always accompanied him wherever he went; but sometimes when they would not continue burning a whole day and night, till the same hour that they were lighted the preceding evening, from the violence of the wind, which blew day and night without intermission through the doors and windows of the churches, the fissures of the divisions, the plankings, or the wall, or the thin canvass of the tents, they then unavoidably burned out and finished their course before the appointed time; the king therefore considered by what means he might shut out the wind, and so by a useful and cunning invention, he ordered a lantern to be beautifully constructed of wood and white ox-horn, which, when skilfully planed till it is thin, is no less transparent than a vessel of glass. This lantern, therefore, was wonderfully made of wood and horn, as we before said, and by night a candle was put into it, which shone as brightly without as within, and was not extinguished by the wind; for the opening of the lantern was also closed up, according to the king's command, by a door made of horn. By this contrivance, then, six candles, lighted in succession, lasted four and twenty hours, neither more nor less, and, when these were extinguished, others were lighted.”
The pence were denarii, 1 penny silver coins, and the candle would have been 12 inches or 1 foot in length.
Alfred silver London penny 1.8 cm diameter, 1.54g weight
page 176
Original text for “The Sale”
More ideas page 159
Data Representation Sources:
Information is beautiful see, for example, “Which Fish are Okay to Eat?”. See also Snake Oil Superfoods? and Billion Euro-O-Gram
Benjamin Zander on music and passion
OECD Better Life Index: This index allows you to compare well-being across countries based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
Hans Rosling “The Joy of Stats: GapMinder.org”
Thirteen reasons why your brain craves info graphics