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Metric unit prefices including tera, giga, mega, kilo

Metric unit prefices including tera, giga, mega, kilo, milli, micro, nano, pico

This math skill teaches the use of extended metric prefixes such as tera, giga, mega, kilo, milli, micro, nano, and pico. Each prefix indicates a quantity that is 1000 times larger or smaller than the next, and they are used to denote different scales when measuring various quantities like bytes, meters, or hertz.

Learn metric unit prefices including tera, giga, mega, kilo

Teaching Transcript

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Let's learn the extended metric prefices for tera, giga, mega, kilo, milli, micro, nano, and pico. This is an extended set, where each prefix is 1000 times larger than the next one.

Each prefix has a letter that is always used to represent it. For the larger units, except for kilo, a capital letter is always used. For example, capital 'M' is mega, but a lower case 'M' is milli. Also note that for micro, a greek letter Mu that looks like a 'u' with a tail is used.

We add the prefix to the thing being measured, like bytes for storage, meters for length or hertz for frequency. So 1 Megabyte is written with a capital 'M' paired with a capital 'B', and is one million bytes

A simple way to think about these prefices is that they represent multiples of 10 to the 3. Each unit has a power of ten that is three larger than the next one

A good mneumonic to use is 'terribly gigantic monsters killed one million men napping peacefully'

Skill Practice

Metric unit prefices including tera, giga, mega, kilo, milli, micro, nano, pico

Test your understanding of metric unit prefices including tera, giga, mega, kilo by practicing it! Work through the below exercises to use it in practice.