# Learning About the Clock (Seconds)

From the clock you learned that there are $24$ hour in a day and $60$ minutes in an hour. Now, you are going to learn about seconds. There are $60$ seconds in a minute.

Some analog clocks have three hands, where the last hand counts seconds and is called the second hand. The second hand moves $60$ times in one minute, which means that the second hand ticks $60$ times for each time the minute hand ticks once. Since the seconds go by very fast, we do not usually say anything about the seconds when we talk about what time it is.

We do not use seconds in everyday speech, but when do we use seconds?

Here are some examples:

• When you compete about who can hold their breath the longest.

• Running the $60$ meter dash in PE class.

• When you play hide and seek and it’s your turn to count.

Pull out a watch or a stopwatch. You might have a super professional stopwatch, or you can find one on your phone. Start the stopwatch and see how long 30 seconds is.

You are now given two tasks:

1.
Ask an adult to start the stopwatch. Say “stop” when you think exactly 30 seconds have passed. Check with the stopwatch. Were you close to being able to feel how long 30 seconds is?
2.
Guess how long you can hold your breath. Next, hold your breath and use a stopwatch to measure how long you can actually hold it. Was your guess correct?

Math Vault

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