Houston Weimar #212 Math 6, per. 5 Anthropometry Do you know what anthropometry is?

Anthropometry is the measurement of human dimensions. The word is derived from Latin, anthropos translates to the English word human, and metrikos translates to the English word measuring. In math for a couple of days, we learned about anthropometry and how to use it. Diane France is a bone detective who can figure out how tall, old, sick, or healthy a person is simply by looking at their femur. My class of 15 along with Mrs. Schwarz, the rest of the 6th grade teachers, and Mr. Phox participated in this unit. My belief is that anthropometry can teach us the importance of using math in daily tasks, big and small. To begin our unit, we focused on the radius bone and our height, and on the second day, we graphed all of our classmates radiuses and heights. Mrs. Schwarz showed us a video about Diane France and her dream to uncover the missing body of Anastasia, an old Russian heir who had been killed in her teens along with all of her family. After watching the video, we measured our radius along with a partner. All humans have two radius bones, one in each arm. It measures from your elbow to our wrist socket. My radius was 8.5 inches. While we were measuring, Mrs. Schwarz called us up individually to measure our height. When everyone had finished we recorded all of our classmates heights and radiuses to the nearest half inch on a sheet of paper, which Mrs. Schwarz told us to bring to class the next day. Individually we also filled out the mean, which was 8.3(The quotient of the sum of several quantities and their number; an average.), median, which was 8.5,(the median value of a range of values) mode, which was 8.5(the number that occurs the most in a set of data), and range, which was 1.5(The smallest number in a data set subtracted from the largest). We were curious what we would be needing the paper for, and to our surprise Mrs. Schwarz said we were going to make a scatter graph with all of our classmates radiuses and heights on it. The length of their radius is located on the y-axis, and on the x-axis is the height of the person. Our class made separate dots for the boys and the girls as you can see on the left. I also drew a line through the dots to estimate the average height. The line goes through the dots and once the line hits the dot you move to the left and can see an estimated height.

Second, on day 3 and 4 we measured our humerus and tibia with a partner. My humerus was 11 inches and my tibia is 14.5 inches. The tibia is from the kneecap down to the anklebone, and the humerus reaches from your shoulder socket down to your elbow crease. My predicted was 63.4 inches for my tibia, 62 inches for my humerus, and 63.15 inches for my radius. A worksheet was the activity that took up most of the time on day three. Most of the worksheet included measuring our tibia and humerus, (which we had already done) and using certain formulas to estimate our height with the measurements. We also answered a question in which we had to figure out if a bone belonged to a man or a woman and to explain our answer. Mrs. Schwarz told us that we would estimate every teachers height with each bone (radius, humerus, and tibia) and then to circle the bone that was the closest to the actual height. The bone that measured the closest was the humerus, with a difference of two inches or less when subtracted from the real height. I also measured and estimated Kristens height and bones. Her radius was 7.5 and her estimated height was 58.15. It was 0.65 inches off from her real height 57.5. Our class estimated Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Phox, Mr. Finan, Mrs. DeVries, Mrs. Schwarz, and Mr. Gehrer. At the end of the paper there was a question about the estimates, and if they were close to the real heights. In conclusion, I believe that anthropometry taught us the importance of using math in daily tasks, big and small. Math is very interesting, and I know that we use it every day in everything we do. I think that people should take it more seriously, and use it more in our subjects at school. In my opinion, anthropometry is extremely interesting. The most difficult activity in this project was using the formulas to estimate the heights of the teachers. If I could give a forensic scientist some advice on predicted heights from bones, I would advise them to make sure they are using the right formula because there are different formulas for males and females. Knowing that you can measure a bone and figure out how tall someone is just by using a simple formula is fascinating. Using math while studying bones and other fun subjects might help people take it more seriously.