My Neighborhood Math

This is an image of the apartment complex that i stay in when i am in East Lansing. There are lots of kids who stay in this complex and they love to play by the pond. As a future mother I have concerns for the safety of the children that live here. I would like them to build a fence around the pond so that no one gets to close to the water and have an accident. The management office would like to know how long the pond is. A teacher can turn this into a measurement question for students using non-standard tools. Students can count how many foot steps in takes Mr. Brooks, who wears a size 12,  to get from one end of the pond to the next remembering the key components in measuring (no gaps or overlaps). Seeing that Mr. Brooks wears a size 12 shoe students can convert 12 inches into 1 foot and determine the number of feet long the pond is.