I'm taking an EMT-Basic class that meets every other Saturday. Last Saturday the instructor was trying to convey the impression that even a small amount of blood covers a large area and that it's hard to estimate blood loss based on the size of the puddle. In the process, he mentioned a "unit of blood" stating that it was roughly a pint or half of a quart.
One of the students raised her hand and asked how large a quart was. The instructor tried to get her to "see" a quart in relationship to sizes of cartons of milk. She had no clue. Then he mentioned a half-gallon sized container of ice cream and she was familiar with that but she didn't know how many quarts were in the half-gallon. I spoke up and pointed out the bottle of Aqua Fina water sitting in front of her and I asked its size (which I already knew). She said it was 500 mL or half of a liter --- made that relationship herself! Then I said that a quart was roughly the same size as a liter, which elicited a surprised, "Oh!". She could picture liters, but not quarts. The instructor (~ 50 years old) then said that he knew a liter was close to a quart but could not remember if it was slightly more or slightly less and he asked me which it was. I said that it depended on whether he was talking about a liquid quart or a dry quart and he said in a surprised tone, "You mean there are two different quarts?" I confirmed that and stated that the liter was "smack dab in between them." Tell me again how it is obvious that Americans are more familiar with their old, non-metric units than they are with the metric ones. Jim -- James R. Frysinger Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist Senior Member, IEEE http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: Physics Lab Manager, Lecturer Dept. of Physics and Astronomy University/College of Charleston 66 George Street Charleston, SC 29424 843.953.7644 (phone) 843.953.4824 (FAX) Home: 10 Captiva Row Charleston, SC 29407 843.225.0805
