How to visualize one part per million - Kim Preshoff + The TED-Ed Community
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Let’s Begin…
“Parts per million” is a scientific unit of measurement that counts the number of units of one substance per one million units of another. But because it’s hard to conceptualize really large numbers, it can be difficult to wrap our brains around what “one part per million” really means. Kim Preshoff (with help from 100+ animators from the TED-Ed Community) shares nine helpful ways to visualize it.
While humans find it hard to conceptualize extremely large numbers, putting things to scale or in relatable terms makes these numbers easier to conceptualize. Let’s try scaling down one part per billion using information from this lesson. If one part per million is 1 second in 11.5 days, one part per billion will be one second in how many years? Show your thinking!
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Kim Preshoff
- Script Editor Eleanor Nelsen
- Sound Designer Stephen LaRosa
- Narrator Julianna Zarzycki
