Teaching kids units and unit conversion

[suderfuge]

Hello,
I'm new to this forum, and have been wondering if anyone has a good resource for teaching the fundamentals of units and unit conversion to elementary and middleschool children (I have 3), with the aim of preparing them for engineering type calculations. Any parents out there with a good program or resource?

 

[drawoh]

This cannot be the best forum to ask this question in.

Back in college, one of my professor insisted that we do unit conversions. Take the following example...

F = ma = w/g[×]a = 10lb [×] 4.45N/lb / 9.81m/s[sup]2[/sup] [×] 10ft/s[sup]2[/sup] [×] .3048m/ft = 13.8N.

This does not help much if your kids are not doing algebra yet, but otherwise, it makes the conversion process clear. It also catches algebra errors, when your units do not balance.

--
JHG