Metric Conversions - "Show your work!"

Whether you are trying to rush through your homework of the metric system or are learning how to do metric conversions there is one thing you typically have in common, which is typically imprinted on the top of your assignment, "Show your work".

Even before the days of the internet, teachers required you to show your work when it came to working with metric conversions, but now with a simple search with google or any search engine, you can find hundreds of sites to convert 800 feet to meters or 120 kilograms to pounds. Because of this, more teachers require you to show your work, which isn't a bad thing, because knowing and demonstrating the steps for metric conversions is a great learning and reinforcement tool.

Unfortunately, most sites don't show you the conversion steps, so what happens if you are stuck on a metric conversion, or are in a rush? You can try googling for metric conversion dimensional analysis. This will take you to numerous informational, but static pages that explain the process, but can't offer the specific answer to the metric conversion you are trying to solve. So, what if you need an interactive tool?

We came across one such site that does exactly that. Formulaconversion.com does metric conversions with dimensional analysis dynamically, updating the unit factors based on the units you select to convert. Based on the first example we mentioned above, converting 800 feet to meters, the website produces the following output:

This can now be used to show your work, but more importantly it can be used to help you learn to do metric conversions on your own and check your work.

While we don't want to encourage people to take the easy way out, there are times when both students and adults need extra help and they don't have access to their teacher or an adult that remembers way back to their school days. We hope this guide and recommended tool will be used to teach students and be a friendly reminder to parents trying to help their students learn metric conversions.

There are benefits to you and reasons behind why teachers ask you to 'Show your work'. Besides ensuring you understand the material, remember, tools that show you not only the answer, but the work, won't be available when you are in class taking an exam on metric conversion. So when you "Show your work", make sure it is something you understand as well, for your personal benefit and a better exam score.