Kathleen in VA Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Yes, I know. You can't really do that. Ds13 asked me this question. I am trying to explain that acres measure area and miles measure length. He doesn't get it. Can anyone think of a way to explain the difference between these two and why it would be impossible to state how many acres are in a mile? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnPrairieMuffin Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 An acre is a measurement of land, so it has dimensions. You would have to do a square mile I think and make the measurements like so that you could find an equal value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GWOB Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Move to rural Nebraska, where everything is measured off in square miles.:) That makes it a little easier to explain. Anyway, there are 640 acres in a SQUARE mile. How to explain the difference? Well, miles are straight lines (for the sake of argument). Acres are square (again, for the sake of argument). They have four sides. I guess you could try to compare it to basic geometry. A mile is like a line segment, whereas an acre is like a square or some other sort of parallelogram. Clear as mud? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 What about giving him a visual to illustrate it? Like draw a line next to a square on a piece of paper and ask him, "how many of these squares can you fit in this line?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgia Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 Yes, I know. You can't really do that. Ds13 asked me this question. I am trying to explain that acres measure area and miles measure length. He doesn't get it. Can anyone think of a way to explain the difference between these two and why it would be impossible to state how many acres are in a mile? First of all, does he mean square mile? If he really means mile, then... I would draw it, using a rectangle and a line. You can measure the area of a rectangle in square miles or acres (or square inches, square km, square meters or any other squared measure of distance), and you can measure a distance (straight line) in miles (or inches, meters, etc), but not in acres. Acres has no real equivalent of distance, as miles to square miles. You don't have square acres - it's already a two-dimensional measure, if you will. It's much smaller than a square mile. I looked it up - 1 acre=0.0016 sq. miles. So you can fit many acres (lots of little rectangles) into a square mile (one big rectangle.) Kind of convoluted, but that's my 2c. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 If there are 640 acres in a mile, then you could draw a line and say it's a mile long (representing a mile long - not actually a mile long... lol) and then make it a tiny sliver wide (like 1/640th of the length..) and say if an acre of area was a mile long, it would be 8'3" wide. Would that make sense to him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathleen in VA Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 (edited) Thanks ladies. I drew a picture of a line and showed him that it could extend for a mile. Then I explained how the acre could be long or short and that would affect how many miles long it could be. I then read the idea of thinking in terms of dimensions and the idea of square miles. I drew a picture of an "acre' laid on top of a "square mile" and told him that 640 of the acres would fill up the square mile. I then likened it to pattern block tiles laid out over my laptop. I explained that you cannot compare a 2-dimensional thing with a one dimensional thing. I also showed him how acres are not always laid out in neat little squares or rectangles by looking at a real estate website's land offerings. The acres shown were in all kinds of weird shapes and that got him to see that acres cover area not length. Whew! Thanks again!! Edited November 9, 2009 by Kathleen in VA typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyAberlin Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 A mile is length and and acre or a sq mile are both area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladydusk Posted November 9, 2009 Share Posted November 9, 2009 I always think of an acre as about the same size as a football field. I have little concept of distance or area, so that mental help works pretty well. The wiki page even uses that as a descriptor LOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathleen in VA Posted November 9, 2009 Author Share Posted November 9, 2009 I always think of an acre as about the same size as a football field. I have little concept of distance or area, so that mental help works pretty well. The wiki page even uses that as a descriptor LOL. Oh, this is a great idea because he LOVES football. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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