A Clever Way to Help Students Make Reasonable Capacity Estimates

Published March 16, 2011 | By Ms. K

Never underestimate the power of using your garbage as learning tools. A college professor once told me that a teacher is only as good as her tools. With this in mind when teaching capacity, I make sure I save some garbage–an example of a gallon, half gallon, quart, pint, cup, ounce, liter, and milliliter in containers students are familiar with. All of these container sizes are easy to find in a store, and if you make your colleagues and family aware that you are collecting trash, they will be most obliged to donate to your cause. Below I will show you some pictures of trash I have collected along with a description of items you can use.

Gallon: Milk jug or Hawaiian Punch jug
Half Gallon: milk jug
Quart: Buttermilk, creamer, chocolate milk
Pint: half and half cream
Cup: students’ milk cartons from lunch
Ounce: I had to go to the Container Store for a small ounce container
Liter: water bottle
milliliter: measuring spoon (1.2 mL) or eyedropper