What is a unit of measurement? How do I deal with measurement errors? Measurement is an important skill for everyday life but especially in fields of STEM.
These pages will enhance your understanding of measurement, units and how to deal with errors.
All measurements need a value as well as a unit of measurement. All physical units of measurement can be broken down to a few component parts such as meters for length, seconds for time or kilograms for mass.
Read this worksheet to see how complex physical units are built from basic components.
From this you can better understand what the units represent, and check if a calculation has been made properly.
A measurement is not complete without its units: 20 meters is meaningless without the meters (m).
Some measurements are very small, or large, and require smaller or larger versions of the unit.
It is important to convert between units when a smaller or larger unit is more appropriate.
Read this page to learn about different sized units, the prefixes that identify them,
and how to move from one to the other.
How do I calculate the error in my experiment?
Every measurement involves some inaccuracy and we explore this.
Read these pages to understand the types of errors that come up with measurements in your experiments and practical work.
How do I calculate the error in my experiment?
Every measurement involves some inaccuracy and we explore this.
Read these pages to understand the types of errors that come up with measurements and calculations in your practical work.
How do I deal with a number with lots of zeros in it?
Scientific and Engineering notation gives us a way to easily read values that may be very large or very small.
Read this page to understand how to express very large or small
measurements without having to use lots of digits and zeros.
How do I deal with a number with lots of zeros in it?
Scientific and Engineering notation gives us a way to easily read values that may be very large or very small.
Read this page to understand how to express very large or small
measurements without having to use lots of digits and zeros.
Do I need to use all the numbers from my calculator?
If there are a lot of digits in a measurement, we can assume that ascientist has measured to a high level of accuracy. However, measuring perfectly is not possible.
We should not overstate how accurate we have been in making a measurement.
Significant figures helps us understand how certain we are about a result.
Read this
worksheet to learn how to interpret the accuracy of a calculated measurement.
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