Let's measure: ounces, pounds, and tons. (1956)

[Music] so [Applause] do you like riddles there's a riddle tommy has been thinking about with his friend steve that's why they got this old pillow made of cotton to help find the answer to the riddle steve's father said he would help the riddle is which weighs more a pound of cotton or a pound of iron a pound of cotton a pound of iron perhaps you know the answer already but let's watch with tommy and steve as they think it out one pound of cotton how much is a pound could you tell just by looking let's see a little more there the scale tells us that's a pound of cotton looks big doesn't it now what's next a pound of iron father suggests using some iron bolts here are some iron bolts you better take another box to be sure we have a pound it doesn't make any difference what size the bolts are as long as they are iron let's try the iron in this box how big is a pound of iron as big as the pounds of cotton wait a minute that's more than one pound of iron there now there's one pound of iron on the scale let's compare the pound of iron with the pound of cotton which is bigger the cotton of course but which weighs more oh tommy sees the cotton and the iron both weigh the same each weighs one pound it doesn't matter if something is big or small if it weighs one pound it weighs one pound if you just look at how big something is it can fool you sometimes the weight of something is written on a package this bag of grass seed holds just one pound sometimes the word pound is spelled out and sometimes it's written l b for short we still read this as pound this is a new package none of it has been used so the scale should tell us the same thing one pound now here's a question for the boys and for you suppose the package is open and half the grass seed is used up after this will the label still tell us how much is in the bag what do you think the scale says there's only a half of a pound in here the label only tells us how much the thing holds if it's full the scale tells us how much things really weigh tommy thinks of other scales he has seen shopping at the store with his sister have you ever noticed the scales at the store the butcher uses a scale to weigh the meat how much does this meat weigh one pound how much do these potatoes weigh two pounds at the candy store they sell candy by the pound or by the half pound but look closely do you see some other marks on the scale those are like the marks on tommy's scale they look like they are parts of a pound yes each of these marks stands for an equal part of a pound it's called an ounce and in a pound there are well let's see if we can find out perhaps with another box of iron bolts one of these bolts happens to weigh one mark or one ounce do you know how much an ounce is let's see how many there are in a pound one of these bolts weighs just one one ounce let's try two two of these bolts weigh two ounces now let's count with tommy three four five six seven eight and nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 16 ounces in a pound is that right yes says father 16 ounces in a pound one pound has 16 parts and each part is called an ounce it takes 16 marks on the scale to equal one pound it takes 16 ounces to make a pound a pound is many times as much as an ounce what do we use ounces for why to measure things that weigh less than a pound candy says steve c net weight 20 period o z is a short way to write outs so this candy weighs two ounces sometimes we use ounces and pounds together to tell how much something weighs this size can holds one pound and one ounce if one pound is 16 ounces how much is this 16 and 1 17 ounces now this larger can holds one pound eight ounces can you think of another way to say that you might say a pound is 16 ounces 16 and 8 is 24 24 ounces or because 8 ounces is a half pound you might say one and one half pounds do you see why tommy thinks an ounce is pretty small a pound is more is there something heavier than a pound a big truck that must be more than a thousand pounds yes it weighs much more than that it weighs so much we use another word to talk about it that word is ton the truck weighs many tons you can see what one ton looks like one ton is two thousand pounds this is one ton or two thousand pounds of gravel so ton is just a short way to say two thousand pounds tons are used to measure very heavy things a pound is bigger than an ounce pounds are used to measure things not quite so heavy now here's a little quiz to see what you've learned a bar of soap how would we talk about its weight in pounds in tons no in ounces it weighs five ounces a sack of apples how would we talk about its weight in tons in ounces no in pounds it weighs five pounds and each pound has 16 parts each part is called an ounce in a pound there are that's right 16 ounces now what are the boys doing they want to know how much they weigh everyone likes to think of himself as big and strong how heavy is tommy 68 pounds how heavy are you do you know how could you find out how could you learn more about how heavy things are you