Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland teaches and uses the SI
in K-12 science classes and courses in its schools. The MCPS has about 138,00
students.
The MCPS started this a few years ago at my suggestion with great
cooperation from Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Jerry Weast. Dr. Weast since
has told me on a couple occasions that he is committed to it.
The Rotary Club of Rockville gives a chart of the SI Units along with a
Student Dictionary to each third grade student in the City of Rockville MD each
year. The USMA has SI Unit charts available.
Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Stephen Humphreys
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 4:13 PM
Subject: [USMA:41999] RE: Americans may not even know what "the metric
system" is
Apologies for the triplicate response - my internet connection seemed to have
a fit or something.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [USMA:41996] RE: Americans may not even know what "the metric
system" is
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:07:33 +0000
Thanks for the various responses.
Perhaps this is linked to why so few Americans have passports.
Also could it vary wildly from state to state perhaps?
In the UK we're taught metric in priority to imperial at school (not far off
the USA I would have thought) but in 'real life' the 'street language', if you
will, is broadly imperial. And you know that metric is *even illegal* on UK
signs (with exceptions) yet I'd be surprised if anyone did not know what 'the
metric system' meant here, as a term. Perhaps I'm being naive because of my
interest in the subject - or perhaps the bad press makes people aware - I'm not
sure.
Thanks for the insight though.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [USMA:41989] Americans may not even know what "the metric system" is
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:53:59 -0600
Steve, unfortunately, I believe that Mike is quite right. As a practical
subject, SI is not taught to U.S. students from a young age. Perhaps some
Australians on our list can describe what measurement was like in that country
before the 1970s, but I would guess the U.S. of 2008 is a lot like 1960s
Australia. The use of meters, liters, and kilometers is practically nil.
Bridge clearances are posted in feet and inches. Gasoline (petrol) is sold
exclusively by the U.S. gallon (about 3.8 L) . Except for the few metric
examples on USMA's Road SignWeb page (see
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/) , almost all the distance indicator
signs in America are denominated in miles (1 mile ~= 1.6 km). As Pat Naughtin
has said many times, metric in America is hidden. Where it is used in
manufacturing, it is "dumbed down" to customary units for the consuming public.
Attached is a classic example that I just received from USMA Webmaster Don
Hillger, who describes it as follows:
"I'm sure this is a case where a product is hard filled to 500 grams, then
given an ounce equivalent of 17.7 ounces, and the package designer was given
that 17.7 ounces, and knowing that they need to put metric on the package as
well, ends up with 501 grams as the equivalent! Too bad."
Yet, not knowing what the metric system is may not be a bar to its use. I
asked my long-time German friend what people think of the International System
of Units in Germany. She, a music teacher born and raised in Berlin, who speaks
English and French as well as German, replied, "What is the International
System of Units?"
Paul T.
.
----- Original Message -----
From: Stephen Humphreys
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: 17 November, 2008 10:20
Subject: [USMA:41985] Re: Obama and metric (continued)
I'm somewhat surprised at one of the statements here.
Is that really the case that a lot of people in the USA don't even *know*
what the metric system is?
I'd argue that in the UK the metric system has not really 'caught on' at
all in regards to day to day speech etc but I would never suggest that people
here didn't even know what the term 'metric system' means (possibly blanks at
'SI' but certainly not 'metric').
It seems odd with liter bottles and meters in 'track and field' sports etc
that the very term 'metric' is relatively unknown.
Steve
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:02:14 -0700
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [USMA:41984] Re: Obama and metric (continued)
I to added my support for the proposal and convinced several in my
university classes to do the same :). I do wonder a bit even if we get a metric
America or start going down that road how long it'll take to re-educate people.
I was talking to a couple customers from Malaysia and Germany and the UK the
other day and we were all agreeing that we hope that Obama does push this
change because it makes sense. The two high school and college age cashiers
that were helping out then stopped and got blank looks on their faces and asked
what the metric system was. I explained it was liters and meters and all those
measurements and they all got kind of a sour grapes look and complained about
having to learn another system that made no sense and was "annoying" :). The
nice German lady assured them that once they got used to it they'd come to like
it.
It wouldn't have been so bad except one of the cashiers is majoring in some
form of engineering and hadn't been exposed to SI yet.
Still, we can but hope :)
Mike
On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 7:34 AM, Michael Palumbo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
An update: we are now ranked 6th (!) with 3865 votes, nearly 1400 above
the next item, and only several hundred from 5th & 4th places. Excellent!
-Mike
Paul Trusten wrote:
I have spent the day searching the word sequence "Obama metric system"
online, and I must conclude that, even if Mr. Obama hasn't touched the subject
publicly yet, his supporters sure have. Many of them appear to be enthusiastic
about metrication, and are hopeful that the new president will advocate it.
Also, as of this writing, Bill Potts' contribution to
http:.//obamacto.org maintains eighth place on this list of ideas for Obama's
Chief Technology Officer to pursue.
Paul Trusten, R.Ph.
Public Relations Director
U.S. Metric Association, Inc.
www.metric.org 3609 Caldera Blvd. Apt. 122
Midland TX 79707-2872 US
+1(432)528-7724
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"
(\__/)
(='.'=)This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(")signature to help him gain world domination.
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