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.2.MD.A.2 Measure the length of an object twice, using length units of different lengths for the two measurements; describe how the two measurements relate to the size of the unit chosen.
CCSS.Math.Content.2.MD.A.3 Estimate lengths using units of inches, feet, centimeters, and meters.
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. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?
© Sebastian Helmke/500px
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. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?
Tilt-shift photography makes the mighty Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile in Paris seem like a Monopoly piece. In reality, the 164-foot-tall war memorial honors those who served in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
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. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?1
Thinking
How tall are you? How is this number usually expressed? 2
Make a two-column table that compares height in feet and inches. 3
Web Search
What are some different units that people measure height in? 4
What is the difference between centimeters and inches? Generally, who uses inches and who uses centimeters? What are these systems called? 5
How could you use a mathematical formula to change from one unit of measurement to another?
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. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?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. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?1
Thinking
How tall are you? How is this number usually expressed? 2
Make a two-column table that compares height in feet and inches. 3
Web Search
What are some different units that people measure height in? 4
What is the difference between centimeters and inches? Generally, who uses inches and who uses centimeters? What are these systems called? 5
How could you use a mathematical formula to change from one unit of measurement to another?
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. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?1
Thinking
How tall are you? How is this number usually expressed?
Students should express their heights as they may have heard them described by parents or doctors. (For example, “3 feet, 8 inches.”). They should notice that this number is usually expressed in terms of the number of feet and the remaining number of inches. This question serves as an opportunity for students to start thinking about how different heights are usually expressed. Leading questions can include: in that example, how many more inches would you need to grow before being described as 4 feet? How many inches are in a foot? What does the extra 8 inches over 3 feet represent? How much less than a foot is it?

8. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?2
Thinking
Make a two-column table that compares height in feet and inches.
(Possible queries: “how many inches in a foot?”, “convert inches to feet”)
In order to solve this, students may need to do a search online to find the number of inches in a foot (12). They can build a table comparing these two units by using the Bing Search Bar as a calculator for these conversions (“how many feet is 24 inches?”, “convert inches to feet”) or by doing the math by hand, and multiplying each foot by 12. (2 feet x 12 inches per foot = 24 inches).
Answers will vary, example found below:
INCHES FEET
12 1
24 2
36 3
48 4
60 5
72 6
84 7

9. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?3
Web Search
What are some different units that people measure height in?
(Possible queries: “how to measure height”, “units for measuring height”)
Students should look at a variety of search results (such as and to conclude that feet, height, and inches are the most common units used to measure people’s heights. (They may think about other units that could be used, however, like meters or millimeters. They should think about how different units are used depending on the size of what is being measured. For example, it would be inappropriate to talk about someone’s height in “miles” because they would need to be at least 5,280 feet tall!)

10. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?4
Web Search
What is the difference between centimeters and inches? Generally, who uses inches and who uses centimeters? What are these systems called?
(Possible queries: “difference between centimeters and inches?”, “centimeters v. inches”, “who uses centimeters and who uses inches?”)
From
Inches and centimeters are both units of linear measurement. Inches are used in the American system, which is sometimes referred to as the English system. Centimeters are a unit of measurement in the metric system.
American System
In the United States, the American system is the most commonly used method of measurement. This system uses inch, foot, yard and mile for measurements of length. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that has not adopted the use of the metric system.
Metric System
The meter is the basic unit on which the metric system is based. Because the metric system uses a standard conversion factor, it is usually considered easier to work with. Ten millimeters equal a centimeter, 10 centimeters equal a decimeter and 10 decimals equal a meter.
Comparison
One inch equals 2.54 centimeters; one foot is meters; one yard is equal to meters and 1 mile equals kilometers.

11. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?5
Web Search
How could you use a mathematical formula to change from one unit of measurement to another?
(Possible queries: “how many inches in a foot?”, “how many centimeters in an inch?”)
Students should determine that there are 12 inches in a foot and 2.5 centimeters in an inch. Based on this, they should write equations similar to the ones below:
Number of feet x 12 = number of inches
Number of inches / 12 = number of feet
Number of inches x 2.5 = number of centimeters
Number of centimeters / 2.5 = number of feet

12. What are three different ways to express the exact height of the Arc de Triomphe?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.
164 feet or 1,968 inches or 4,920 centimeters.
Although answers will vary, the most common units students will use are feet, inches, and centimeters. (They can be encouraged to think creatively, however, and measure in meters or millimeters or miles and do these conversions using the Bing Search Bar as a calculator). They can convert the Arc de Triomphe’s height of 164 feet into different units by using the Bing Search Bar as a calculator (Possible query: convert 164 feet to inches”), or by doing the math by hand using the formulas they have developed.