1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Measurement & Data.
CCSS.Math.Content.4.MD.A.1 Know relative sizes of measurement units within one system of units including km, m, cm; kg, g; lb, oz.; l, ml; hr, min, sec. Within a single system of measurement, express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Record measurement equivalents in a two-column table. For example, know that 1 ft is 12 times as long as 1 in. Express the length of a 4 ft snake as 48 in. Generate a conversion table for feet and inches listing the number pairs (1, 12), (2, 24), (3, 36), ...
CCSS.Math.Content.4.MD.A.2 Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale.

2. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week?
© Sergio Ballivian/Tandem Stock
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week?
This is no day hike. The staff of Parks Canada recommends only experienced campers tackle the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island, as the steep climbs and treacherous crossings mean a commitment of about one week if you’d like to hike the whole thing.
But for those who dare and succeed, the wilderness rewards incredible views of the dense temperate rainforest, and at the northern end of the trail, the wild surf of the Pacific coast.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 1
Web Search
What is a kilometer? What is a mile? How could you switch between them? 2
Map Search
Where is the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island? Visualize its distance on a map. 3
Thinking
Why is the distance of the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island usually measured in kilometers, not miles? 4
Create a two-column table to compare kilometers and miles. 5
How long is the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island? Estimate how many kilometers you would need to walk per day to complete that distance in a week.
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 1
Web Search
What is a kilometer? What is a mile? How could you switch between them? 2
Map Search
Where is the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island? Visualize its distance on a map. 3
Thinking
Why is the distance of the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island usually measured in kilometers, not miles? 4
Create a two-column table to compare kilometers and miles. 5
How long is the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island? Estimate how many kilometers you would need to walk per day to complete that distance in a week.
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 1
Web Search
What is a kilometer? What is a mile? How could you switch between them?
(Possible queries: “define: kilometer”, “define: mile”, “difference between kilometer and mile”, “mile to kilometer conversion”, “kilometer to mile conversion”)
From
Kilometer and Mile are both units of distance. In the United States and the United Kingdom, distances are measured in miles. In most other countries, the metric system is used and distances are measured in kilometers.
Mile to Kilometer conversion
1 mile = kilometers
1 mile = 5,280 feet
1 mile = 1,760 yards
Kilometer to Mile Conversion
1 kilometer = miles
1 kilometer = 3,280.8 feet
1 kilometer = 1,093.6 yards
1 kilometer = 1,000 m

8. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 2
Map Search
Where is the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island? Visualize its distance on a map.
(Possible query: “Bing/Maps: Vancouver Island”, “Bing/Images: West Coast Trail Vancouver Island”).
Students should find Vancouver Island and zoom out on the map until they can locate it within the larger country of Canada. Example here:
For the second part of the question, students should search for maps of the trails themselves. Example here:

9. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 3
Thinking
Why is the distance of the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island usually measured in kilometers, not miles?
As a hint, students can be encouraged to think about what they know about the location of Vancouver Island. Leading questions could include: what country is Vancouver Island located in? Where do they use kilometers? Where do they use miles? Ultimately, students should conclude that, based on their map searches, and information that’s been gathered about kilometers v. miles, the distance of the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island is usually measured in kilometers because outside of the United Kingdom and United States, distances are generally measured in this unit.

10. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 4
Thinking
Create a two-column table to compare kilometers and miles.
(Possible queries: “kilometer to mile conversion”, “mile to kilometer conversion”)
Answers will vary. Students should use the Bing Search Bar as a calculator, or multiply by hand (number of kilometers x .62 miles per kilometer) to make a table that compares the two, such as the one below.
KILOMETERS MILES
1 .62

11. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week? 5
Web Search
How long is the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island? Estimate how many kilometers you would need to walk per day to complete that distance in a week.
(Possible queries: “distance of West Coast Trail, Vancouver Island”, “how long is the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island?”)
Approximately 75 kilometers. (From:
Students should start thinking about how many kilometers per day a person would need to walk to complete it in a week. They should think about how it’s 75 kilometers, spread out over 7 days, and roughly estimate that it will be somewhere around 10 kilometers per day.

12. About how far (in kilometers and miles) would you need to walk per day to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question. Students should calculate that 75 kilometers spread out over 7 days, would mean that you’d need to walk approximately kilometers per day. (75 kilometers / 7 days = kilometers per day).
Students should then convert this amount to miles, either by multiplying by .62 (10.71 kilometers x .62 miles per kilometer = 6.64 miles per day) or by using the Bing Search bar (Possible query: “convert kilometers to miles”).
They should find that to complete the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island in a week, a hiker would need to walk kilometers or 6.64 miles per day.