Years, Months, Days, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds
Updated: July 5, 2005
In This Lesson:
Teacher Overview
Classroom Resources
Academic Standards
Setting the Stage
Student Directions
Assessments
Extensions
Teacher Overview
During this lesson students will calculate how old they are in years, months, days and on down to seconds. Once they have used the Microsoft Excel template to calculate their age, they will write a short paragraph describing how the calculation was done. For more information on how Excel can calculate dates visit ExcelTip.com.
Classroom Resources:
Student Directions - save this document to your classroom computers. Adjust the directions as needed for your lesson. When presenting your lesson to the students, have them use the student directions sheet as a jump point into the activity.
Academic Standards
Math: Numbers and operations
ISTE NETS Standards for Students
| • | Students demonstrate a sound understanding of the nature and operation of technology systems. |
Teaching Points
| • | The student will describe in writing the mathematical functions for calculating age by years, months, days, minutes and seconds. |
Setting the Stage
Discuss with students the units of measurement used for time (year, month, week, day, hour, minute and second). Ask the students how old they are - then ask if they know how old they are in months, days, and hours. List on the board the units of time measurement:
| • | 60 seconds =1 minute |
| • | 60 minutes = 1 hour |
| • | 24 hours = 1 day |
| • | 365.25 days = 1 year |
Tell the students that they will be using Excel to calculate how old they are in the various units of time. Explain that once they have determined their age, they will write a short paragraph describing how Excel was able to calculate their age using the different measurements.
Student Directions
1. | Open the Microsoft Excel template "Years, Months, Days, Hours, Minutes Seconds". |
2. | Follow the instructions in the template. |
3. | Open a Word document. |
4. | Describe in your own words how you believe the Excel template was able to calculate your age. What formulas were used? |
Assessments
Students' paragraphs can be assessed for understanding the different units of measuring time, and the formulas for calculating these.
Extensions
Have students create their own formulas to calculate how old they are in weeks and decades.
