WALT Measure the Length of our Body Parts by Group 6

Have you ever wondered why we measure parts of our body?

Well,let me tell you all about it. We are learning about measurement in mathematics this term... We started off learning about why we measure certain things. Census NZ sent schools around New Zealand a survey to complete on measurement. The information they ask us to complete will help several businesses and manufacturers when designing clothing or building furniture for students.

Some of the tasks we have to measure are: How long our arms are, how tall we are, the size of our right foot, our index finger along with our ring finger, our wrist and neck and our popliteal length as well.

I bet you don't know what your popliteal length is!! Let's have a look at your popliteal length...When measuring your popliteal length, you need to sit in a chair and make sure your feet are flat on the floor, then measure from underneath your knee (at the right angle part) to the bottom of your heel where it meets the floor. The reason why we measure this is for people to know what the average length of children's popliteal length is, so that manufacturers know what height to create chairs and tables to suit students.

During morning tea time we asked a few teachers if they knew what their popliteal length was...none of them knew, only our teacher.

We hope you have learnt something new, we sure have. Try asking someone about their popliteal length and question them as to why Census NZ would need that information. We thought it was a pretty clever initiative for Census NZ to send our this survey to all the primary schools around NZ to find information for designers and manufacturers.