How to Compare the Metric System & the U.S. Customary System for Middle School Students

Your middle school students may be less than enthusiastic about an upcoming unit on the metric system. Use a hands-on, discovery approach to compare basic metric and U.S. units of measure.

Length

Students can measure many items to compare inches and centimeters.

Place several small objects that students can measure in both inches and centimeters around the classroom. Ask students to measure larger objects also using both yards and meters. Provide students with a worksheet instructing them to divide centimeters by inches and meters by yards so they can compare the U.S. and metric units of length.

Volume

Students can use beverage containers to compare gallons and liters.

Ask students to pour water from a 1-gallon milk container into a 1-liter beaker. Students can determine the number of liters in one gallon by counting the number of beakers that are filled. Commonly used quart, pint and cup containers can also be used to compare other U.S. liquid volume units to the metric liter.

Mass

Metric weight sets will help students compare pounds to kilograms.

Instruct students to measure milligram, centigram, gram and kilogram weights separately on a digital scale that reads both pounds and ounces. Students can compare the metric units of mass to the U.S. units of mass by dividing the metric units by the U.S. units.