How To Teach Scaling With Rulers To Inner City High School Students

Many students currently enrolled in inner city Highyou want to update the fire exit maps to
Schools do not possess a working knowledge of theaccommodate the new construction to the building.
common ruler. In teaching Architectural Drawing it isExplain that 100 ft can be noted as 100 units and now
essential for the students to have a firm grasp of howyou want to see what unit size is best to scale a
to scale their drawings accurately.drawing on an 8-1/2" x 11" Sheet of paper. Now go to
To help teach the students give them a quick ruler testthe board and write ¼" for the unit size and ask
that has measurements of various lengths that theythe class if that will work. You will explain that it will not
can fill in. Be sure to let the students know that you arebecause there are 48 of these ¼" units to make
doing this sort of as a doctor's check up rather than aa foot which is larger than the paper. You will then
quiz. This puts the students at easy allowing them toenter smaller units until you get a unit (fraction size)
work with a clear mind. Go around and give thethat will fit for the scale.
students assistance as they ask for it.In closing I bring up the size of the solar system as an
After the quiz talk briefly bout scale, try and do this inexample for plugging in different scale sizes. I ask the
about 10 minutes otherwise you will lose their attention.class what scale would I use to put an image of the
The best way to illustrate scale for all the students tosolar system in an encyclopedia page in the size of 8-1
understand is to you the fire exit floor plan on the wall2" x 11". When using such vast numbers it helps the
near the door (where it usually is in place in all schoolsstudents visualize the point that you are making about
nationwide).scaling the drawings.
Tell the class that the school building is 100ft. long and