Wise closing words from Bob Woodward...
Bob Woodward: If you're gonna do it, do it right. If you're gonna hype it, hype it with the facts.
The view from the parking garage
The largest parking lot in North America is at the West Edmonton mall in Canada (hey, nobody likes to shop outside in the snow, so 20,000 spaces can come in handy!)
When you put them together, the mall and parking lot measure 0.9 km by 0.5 km. If a measley 1 cm of rain falls on the West Edmonton complex, how many cubic meters of water would that be?
(To make this problem interactive, turn on javascript!)
- the total volume of rain : 0.45km x km x cm
- what conversions do you need? : two dimensions are given in km, and one in cm. So, you need to convert km->m twice and cm->m once.
- convert all the units to m: multiply by 1000m/1km x 1000m/1km x 1m/100cm
- use a calculator if you need to: 0.45 x 1000 x 1000 / 100 = ...
I think I have the answer: 4500m3
If you are going on to the module on hemocytometers, converting 3-dimensional space will be a particularly useful skill. Remember
- convert using a chain of fractions that equal 1,
- follow the units to ensure that you are doing the conversions correctly, and
- use a separate fraction for each unit (or dimension) that needs to be converted.
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