Name:

Class:

Problems involving mass worksheet

For this activity you will need digital kitchen scales.

1. Switch on the scales and use this space to describe what you see.

2. Find 3 objects in your house that you can weigh using the scales. For example, a mobile phone,

a book, an item of clothing or a cup.

a. Place your first object on the scales. Does the display show the mass in grams or kilograms?

How can you tell?

b. Write down the mass of each object in grams and in kilograms in the table below.

Object Mass shown on display

Mass of object in grams

Mass of object in kilograms

Example Mobile phone 190 grams 190 0.19

1

2

3

3. Answer the following questions about the objects you have weighed.

Show any working you do.

a. Did your scales automatically show you the mass in grams or kilograms?

b. How did you work out the mass in the other units?

c. Can your scales measure mass using any other units? If yes, what other units are available?

d. You can see from the table that the mass of one mobile phone could be 190 grams. What

would be the mass of 100 of these mobile phones?

e. Which units did you choose for part d. and why?

4. Now, find 3 objects in your house that have packaging. These can be things like a box of biscuits,

a box of cereal, a tin of tomatoes, or a tube of toothpaste.

a. Look at the packaging. Is a mass written anywhere? Record the mass in the table below.

Object Mass written on packaging

Mass of object as shown on scales

(grams)

Mass of object as shown on scales

(kilograms)

Example Box of muesli bars 210 g net 296 grams 0.296 kilograms

4

5

6

b. Are there any words written next to the mass? Write these down as well.

c. Put your first object on the scales and write down its mass in kilograms and in grams in the

table. Then do the same for your other objects.

d. Does the mass on the display match the mass on the packaging for each of your objects?

Yes No

e. If ‘No’, why not? Think of as many reasons as you can.

f. Can you think of a way to work out the mass of the packaging, without removing the

contents from the packaging?

g. In the example given in the table, the box of muesli bars had ‘210 g net’ written on it.

What do you think ‘net’ means?

Optional extension activities

5. For each of the items you weighed in Question 4, work out what percentage of the item

was packaging.

6. Without touching your scales, what are the smallest and largest masses that your scales

can measure? How do you know?

7. Is there a ‘Tare’ button on your scales? Investigate what happens when you use it.

8. What is this ‘Tare’ button for? Why might it be helpful? Present your findings as a report in your workbook or as separate document, including labelled diagrams.