• When students convert from meters to centimeters or multiply by 100, the digits shift 2 places to the left.
• When students convert from kilometers to meters or multiply by 1,000, the digits shift 3 places to the left.

• Display completed tables for all to see.
• Invite students to share the patterns they observed in the tables.
• “How are the tables the same? How are they different?” (Some of the numbers in the tables are the same. Some of the relationships are the same. Going from meters to millimeters is the same as going from kilometers to meters because both are 1,000 times greater. The second table has only two columns, but it has a bigger number, 1,000,000.)
• “What do you notice about the location of the 1 and the number of zeros after converting from kilometers to meters?” (Each number in the meters column has 3 more zeros than the number in the kilometers column. The 1 in each number in the meters column is 3 places to the left of the corresponding number in the kilometers column.)

The purpose of this activity is for students to convert from meters to centimeters, using the context of a standing broad jump, a common test for physical fitness. Students may either multiply by 100 to convert from meters to centimeters or divide by 100 to convert from centimeters to meters. Students should be encouraged to use whatever strategy makes sense to them. Future lessons will focus specifically on conversion from centimeters to meters. Give students access to meter sticks.

• Display the expression: .
• “How does this expression represent Elena’s jump in centimeters?” (There are 100 centimeters in a meter.)
• Invite students to share how they found Elena’s jump in millimeters.
• Display the expression: .
• “In what unit of measure does this expression represent Elena's jump? How do you know?” (It represents Elena’s jump in millimeters. There are 10 millimeters in a centimeter and represents the centimeters, so if we multiply the number of centimeters by 10, we will get the number of millimeters.)
• Display the expression: .
• “How does this expression represent Elena’s jump, in millimeters?” (There are 1,000 millimeters in a meter so I have to multiply by 1,000 to get millimeters from meters.)
• Display the equation: .
• Invite students to share which unit they prefer to express the distances that the students jumped.
• “It’s important to choose a unit that makes sense to you.”