2003 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company The Houston Chronicle October 08, 2003, Wednesday 3 STAR EDITION
SECTION: A; Pg. 28 Education LENGTH: 1077 words HEADLINE: FOCUS: MEASUREMENT; WHERE METRIC COUNTS; Students taught system that many Americans shun SOURCE: Staff BYLINE: ERIC BERGER, Houston Chronicle Medical Writer BODY: IT'S DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE the National Football League ever requiring an offense to go 10 meters for a first down. But by now, nearly 30 years after passage of the Metric Conversion Act, Americans were supposed to be filling their cars with liters of gas, monitoring their weight in kilograms and measuring their tee shots in meters. Instead there's something of a hybrid system between English units such as inches and pounds and the metric system: Shoppers find 2-liters of soft drinks in one grocery aisle, a gallon of milk in the next. Photographers put 35 mm film into their cameras but make 4-by-6-inch prints. Dieters count fat grams on food labels but worry about shedding them later as pounds. It can all be confusing for students who must learn both systems in elementary school and spend middle and high school converting back and forth. "We are hurting our kids something terrific by not teaching them the metric system," said Lorelle Young, president of the nonprofit U.S. Metric Association. "The metric system is so much simpler, but instead it's like we're teaching a class where kids are using manual typewriters instead of computers." The dichotomy between the metric system and English units extends well beyond classrooms and the grocery store. In 1999, it caused NASA to lose the Mars Climate Explorer as the spacecraft approached the red planet's atmosphere. In calculating a key spacecraft operation to put the satellite in orbit around Mars, one team of NASA scientists used English units while the other team used metric units. National Metric Week, which began Sunday and ends Saturday, offers time to consider the success and failure of America's metric transition, Young said. In Houston, the Children's Museum held "Mad for Metric" activities last week and will have several metric-system-related activities in its Science Station through Oct. 19. Educators say it is important for children to learn the metric system because of its use around the world. The buyers of U.S. goods abroad demand that they be weighed and measured in metric units. "It's important because it prepares students for their jobs in the future, which is a metric world," said Carolyn L. White, who teaches fifth-grade gifted and talented students at Travis Elementary. White said she goes beyond normal Houston Independent School District metric requirements with her students and said they appreciate the simplicity of a system based on units of 10 - 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 10 centimeters in a decimeter, 10 decimeters in a meter, and so on. The disadvantage for U.S. students, of course, is that they recognize feet, inches and pounds out of habit. With temperature, for example, 100 degrees means a really hot day. It could also mean a child is sick. The metric corollary, 37 degrees Celsius, simply doesn't carry the same meaning. To combat this, students must be given similar benchmarks for metric units, White said, such as the distance from the floor to a doorknob being about a meter. White also tells her students that with the metric system there is much less need for fractions like half a gallon, half a mile or half a foot (about 2 liters, 800 meters and 15 centimeters, respectively). The notion is simple: Instead of something being half a meter, it is simply 50 centimeters. "I ask them, if we didn't have to learn the (English) customary system, would I still have to teach fractions?" White said. "They get a kick out of that." HISD requires teachers to follow the Texas Education Association's Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills guidelines for the metric system. Criteria include elementary students being able to measure distances in the metric system and middle school students having a basic understanding of how to convert units from English units to metric units. There is a historic precedence for America's reluctance to go metric. Thomas Jefferson first proposed converting to meters and kilograms in 1790 with very little luck. A concerted effort in the 1970s to convert motorists to the metric system, with liters at the pump and kilometers on highway signs, met with widespread resistance and was eventually abandoned. It will take a national initiative, probably at the presidential level, to push the country toward the metric system, proponents say. Young said she was disappointed with President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program because that would have been a perfect platform for metric conversion. Instead, she said, the United States is left in poor company. Liberia and Myanmar are the only other countries that lack an official policy to convert to the metric system. (England and Canada had successfully converted by the time Americans beat back liters at the pump.) Politically, the United States may not opt for the metric system for some time. Proponents of change note that it is unlikely the Bush administration is going to call for an end to American tradition in favor of a measurement system originated by the French. LEARNING METRIC Experts say that the key to learning the metric system is to forget the inch-pound units and not attempt to convert back and forth. If you're converting units, you're learning the metric system the hard way. The idea is to connect a familiar object with each metric unit so you get a mental image of the object when the unit is used. Length and distance Millimeter About the thickness of a dime Centimeter About the width of your smallest fingernail Meter About the length of an adult's long stride Kilometer About the length of seven blocks in downtown Houston Weight Gram About the weight of a paper clip Kilogram About the weight of six billiard balls Liquid Measure Milliliter About half the volume within a thimble Liter A little more than a quart Temperature Celsius 100 (degrees) Boiling 37 (degrees) Normal body temperature 22 (degrees) Comfortable outdoor temperature 0 (degrees) Freezing History The metric system, or the International System of Units, is often abbreviated as "SI". It has been around for more than two centuries. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson first proposed that the United States convert to the metric system. It was more than 200 years before another president, George Bush, in 1991, signed an executive order mandating that all agencies using federal money begin using the standard. GRAPHIC: Photos: 1. Joseph Bousa, 11, has his head measured during "Mad for Metric" activities last week at the Children's Museum. Educators say it is important for children to learn the metric system because of its use around the world; 2. Alonzo Ortega, 6, measures his height last week at the Children's Museum. Although Americans are reluctant to trade their yards for meters, "the metric system is so much simpler," says Lorelle Young, president of the U.S. Metric Association. "But instead it's like we're teaching a class where kids are using manual typewriters instead of computers."; Graph: 3. LEARINING METRIC (TEXT); Drawings: 4-12.; 1-2. Photos by Melissa Phillip / Chronicle, 3-12. B.C. Oren / Chronicle, Source: U.S. Metric Association LOAD-DATE: October 9, 2003
