Power of 10

by Greg Crowther

This song was written for Mr. Tice's 6th grade science classes at St. John Catholic School in Seattle. It briefly alludes to the advantages of the metric system in several ways.

I feel the power of 10!
I feel the power of 10!
The metric system’s my friend....
I won’t use gallons again!

I feel the power of 10!
I do conversions in pen!
I move the decimal when
I divide or multiply by 10!

• karaoke

• MP3 (demo)

• music video (with Phil Crowther)

• sheet music (with melody play-back)

Songs like this one can be used during class meetings and/or in homework assignments. Either way, the song will be most impactful if students DO something with it, as opposed to just listening.

An initial, simple follow-up activity could be to answer the study questions below. A more extensive interaction with the song might entail (A) learning to sing it, using an audio file and/or sheet music as a guide, and/or (B) illustrating it with pictures, bodily poses, and/or bodily movements. The latter activity could begin with students identifying the most important or most challenging content of the song, and deciding how to illustrate that particular content.