Pat et al: You are addressing the public sector, games etc. What you are suggesting is OK but will require a lot of effort. For the most part, people don't care about measurements except for the numbers. Football and soccer field etc have lines and people only care about being within the lines. There is no standard soccer (your football) fields size at least according to rules in the US. When kids play hop scotch for example, many times they just draw lines in the dirt and then play.
Most important is to get the kids to learn and memorize the names and symbols for the units, the SI writing style, the relationship of units and how they are meaningful to every day life. Stan Doore ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2002 9:34 PM Subject: [USMA:24297] A new year metric project Dear Stan and All, One of the projects that I have considered for use in schools is the idea of a metric playground that might include: . a metric chess board with squares 1 metre x 1 metre for graphing games with real people as graph points (Oh, and for playing chess � after suitable research and dressing-up � as well as finding out how many kids you can stand on a square metre) The next challenge might be to allow stacking ie, to allow kids to form pyramids but still keep their base (their feet) inside the square metre. . some cubic metres made from stout pipe (for climbing on) and stacked in various formats . some cubic metres with solid sides for filling games (How many kids can you fit into a cubic metre) . some 3 m - 4 m - 5 m triangles painted on the ground and maybe some 5 m � 12 m � 13 m or even 8 m � 15 m � 17 m triangles to provide comparisons. . a true north-south line for measuring shadows from a gnomon (vertical stick in this case) that is one metre high Other vertical sticks 2 m, 3 m, and 4 m are also handy for height comparisons. If possible you can use these heights for sighting the horizon and estimating its distance. . various marked and labelled distances for pacing out your steps and checking your speeds when walking, jogging, running, cycling, or wheeling your wheelchair. Ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred metre marks sound good. You could couple with this some marked but 'unknown' distances for guessing, estimating, and measuring. . a human measuring stick for measuring heights marked in 0.1 metre intervals (say by black and white bands like a surveyors stick) all the way to 2.5 metres, which is the height of the tallest person who ever lived. . set of scales (with flat pans large enough to hold one or two children) to determine masses of children by comparison with some masses � 2 x 5 kg, 2 x 10 kg, 2 x 20 kg, and 50 kg, should do. . a (fine free-running) sand pit with measured and labelled cups, jugs, saucepans, buckets, and various cubes and funnels (1 L, 2 L, 5 L, and 10 L sound like good sizes). . some � circles with a labelled diameter of 1000 millimetres and a circumference labelled as 3142 millimetres plus similar 2 m and 3 m circles painted on the ground. . for the advanced player (this is a playground remember) some metric polyhedra with one metre edges, but I suggest that you don't start with an icosahedron. I have to be honest and tell you that this is a long held � but never completed � project. The nearest I got was when I constructed a model of the solar system that had the same scale vertically as it had horizontally � it was just under 600 metres long! Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia . . on 2002-12-31 06.41, G. Stanley Doore at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Thanks. > > If we all pitch in to get school systems to teach SI exclusively in science > and technology classes and courses we will make more progress than shooting > darts randomly. > > Schools have very high visibility with kids and parents. SI is the > international standard and the common language of measurement in S&T, so get > schools to teach and use it exclusively in S&T and show and tell why. The > SI standards are published (documented). SI style guides are published. > ISO date-time standards are published. These standards are published, > approved and agreed on sources so why not use them? It is not often that > such specific and useful materials are accepted, used, useful and available > worldwide.
