Video Transcript
Hannah wants to measure the
capacity of a bucket as accurately as she can. Should she measure its capacity to
the nearest gallon, quart, pint, cup, or fluid ounce?
The phrase “as accurately as she
can” is telling us something important. When we’re working with capacity
and accuracy, the smaller the unit of measure, the more accurate we will be. The smaller the unit of measure,
the better the accuracy. In our list here, gallon, quart,
pint, cup, fluid ounce, we need to choose the smallest unit of measure. So which of these measures is
smallest?
Let’s start with the gallon. Inside a gallon, there are four
quarts. This means that a gallon is not the
smallest unit of measure because a quart is smaller than a gallon. If we keep going with our picture,
inside each quart is two pints. A quart is not the smallest unit of
measure because a pint is smaller than a quart.
The next step, inside every pint
are two cups. Cups are smaller than pints. That means pint is not our smallest
unit of measure. Inside each cup is eight fluid
ounces. That means fluid ounces are smaller
than cups. And it means that cup is not the
smallest unit of measure in our list. Out of these five options, fluid
ounces is the smallest.
Because fluid ounces is the
smallest unit of measure on our list, it is the one that will most accurately
measure the capacity of the bucket. The smaller the unit of measure,
the better the accuracy.
In this case, our smallest unit of
measure is the fluid ounce and that’s what Hannah can use to measure the capacity of
a bucket most accurately.
