4 ms·

In US schools are children taught metric or imperial? For example when measuring a liquid for a science experiment are measurements made in millilitres?

brianlweiner 12y ago
In general you're taught both. All my science classes (physics, chemistry, etc) required using SI units for calculations so grams/mL/etc.
biggerfisch 12y ago
It depends on the class, but most are taught both. At my school, almost everything in the science classes was done in metric, though we were of course very familiar with imperial.
bane 12y ago
When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter is since lots of drinks sell in that volume (and it's almost the same as a quart). But I think it'll be a cold day in hell before we cook in metric...customary units are pretty handy with home-style cooking since they line up pretty well with the size of stuff that's already in your kitchen (a cup, a teaspoon) and all our measuring and cooking equipment is in imperial. Actually, converting imperial measurements is a rotten mess, but using them in practice is pretty convenient. The sizes of most things just sort of intuitively makes sense on a human labor sort of scale (a pound of food turns out to be a nice filling meal, you can estimate inches with your thumb and feet with your forearm, 0 degF is colder than frozen water and just at the edge of tolerable, while 100 degF is just at the edge of tolerable on the other end of the scale even if water it nowhere near boiling, a pint is a good size for a beer, a yard is about a man's reach, an acre is about the size of a field a person can work in a day, etc.) -- there's some sense to them. The military uses metric for most things however (due to constant international collaboration) and you'll find military people have a better grasp of the feel for most metric units, especially distance. It's a bit like in England though where metric is taught, but people still colloquially refer to people in stones or distance in miles and beer in pints. Actually lots of countries still use their customary measurements [1] in certain niches, Koreans still use the pyeong 평 [2] when dealing with real estate for example. I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit to metric using countries and have developed enough sense to quickly convert in my head. I know what a good room temperature is (22-24 degC), but I have no idea if I should bring a jacket when the weather is 15 deg C or not and the difference of 30 - 40 deg C always catches me by surprise. I have good feel for ml, cl and liters (lots of wine drinking), an okay one for kph, meters and km (driving and walking most places). But g and kg continue to stupify me since I can't seem to find a useful frame of reference for those measures. I just end up mentally doubling all kg to pounds where it makes sense. I mean, what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy and to make use of it you end up sectioning it into grams, the liter is the same, too much liquid for anything useful, except I can usually split 1000 ml of wine with my wife over a long relaxing dinner and that's my reference point. And I guess that's the problem, I end up using fractions in decimal countries like I'd use them in the U.S. (most imperial units have handy fractions: 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, 1/12, but metric countries work better with decimals. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#Historical_systems_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#His... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong
- ds9 12y ago
  Amusingly, the areas where the most US Americans are familiar with SI are gun calibers and recreational drugs. [n] (OK, I may have a warped sense of humor, but it's true) n. (not taught in schools)
  - pmontra 12y ago
    Car engines are in liters over there I think. On the other side, TVs are in inches all around the world.
    - lispm 12y ago
      I also see centimeter for TV screens here in Germany. Example: LED TV, 98 cm (39 Zoll), Full HD, 100 Hz, DVB-T2/-C/-S2, Piano-schwarz
      - pmontra 12y ago
        Great, maybe it will spread to other countries :-) Actually I'd like to see the actual width of the screen (bezel included) rather than the diagonal, which is pretty useless. It's to the width that I've been looking at recently when I wanted to know which TV fits into the space I have for it.
        lispm 12y ago
        I needed the height, recently.
- blencdr 12y ago
  "But g and kg continue to stupify me since I can't seem to find a useful frame of reference for those measures" actually 1kg is 1000 cm3 of water (1 cm3 for a gram). The idea behind that was purely scientific, not pragmatic.
- pmontra 12y ago
  > what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy I'm back from a mall so... 1 l of water is 1 kg. 1 l of wine too, for any practical purpose. Water is usually sold in 1 l bottles or 500 ml in restaurants and automatic machines. Pasta is usually sold in 500 g or 1k g boxes. Milk, sugar, flour and salt too. Oil and vinegar are usually 1 l. Butter is usually 250 g or even 125 g for smaller doses. Sure not many items seem to weight more than 1 kg but weight your clothes, you'll be surprised how heavy winter clothes are :-) Basically everything is priced either by the kg or by the liter (vegetables, cheese, meat, beverages, toothpaste, etc). It's required by law so we are able to compare different products of the same kind and different weight and get the better deal, quality aside. Obviously the label has a bigger figure for the price of the item than for the price by the kg. As you see, whatever the units are they a convenient for everyday use because all the economic and legal system is consistent with them. A transition in a country as large as the USA would be bumpy. I'd like to see it happen before I die but I won't bet anything on it, not until they are surpassed by some other country as the leader of the world. After that there might be some real economic incentive to a switch.

brianlweiner 12y ago

In general you're taught both. All my science classes (physics, chemistry, etc) required using SI units for calculations so grams/mL/etc.

biggerfisch 12y ago

It depends on the class, but most are taught both. At my school, almost everything in the science classes was done in metric, though we were of course very familiar with imperial.

bane 12y ago

When we're young we're taught the imperial method since it's the customary system. Once we start getting into science classes it's all metric. Still, outside of science classes (and the military) we don't use it at all. Which means we don't have a good working model in our heads of what a kg feels like or how warm a 30 degC day is...that sort of thing. I think most Americans have a pretty good feel for what a liter is since lots of drinks sell in that volume (and it's almost the same as a quart). But I think it'll be a cold day in hell before we cook in metric...customary units are pretty handy with home-style cooking since they line up pretty well with the size of stuff that's already in your kitchen (a cup, a teaspoon) and all our measuring and cooking equipment is in imperial. Actually, converting imperial measurements is a rotten mess, but using them in practice is pretty convenient. The sizes of most things just sort of intuitively makes sense on a human labor sort of scale (a pound of food turns out to be a nice filling meal, you can estimate inches with your thumb and feet with your forearm, 0 degF is colder than frozen water and just at the edge of tolerable, while 100 degF is just at the edge of tolerable on the other end of the scale even if water it nowhere near boiling, a pint is a good size for a beer, a yard is about a man's reach, an acre is about the size of a field a person can work in a day, etc.) -- there's some sense to them. The military uses metric for most things however (due to constant international collaboration) and you'll find military people have a better grasp of the feel for most metric units, especially distance. It's a bit like in England though where metric is taught, but people still colloquially refer to people in stones or distance in miles and beer in pints. Actually lots of countries still use their customary measurements [1] in certain niches, Koreans still use the pyeong 평 [2] when dealing with real estate for example. I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit to metric using countries and have developed enough sense to quickly convert in my head. I know what a good room temperature is (22-24 degC), but I have no idea if I should bring a jacket when the weather is 15 deg C or not and the difference of 30 - 40 deg C always catches me by surprise. I have good feel for ml, cl and liters (lots of wine drinking), an okay one for kph, meters and km (driving and walking most places). But g and kg continue to stupify me since I can't seem to find a useful frame of reference for those measures. I just end up mentally doubling all kg to pounds where it makes sense. I mean, what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy and to make use of it you end up sectioning it into grams, the liter is the same, too much liquid for anything useful, except I can usually split 1000 ml of wine with my wife over a long relaxing dinner and that's my reference point. And I guess that's the problem, I end up using fractions in decimal countries like I'd use them in the U.S. (most imperial units have handy fractions: 1/3, 1/4, 1/2, 1/12, but metric countries work better with decimals. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#Historical_systems_of_measurement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customary_units_of_measure#His... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyeong

ds9 12y ago
Amusingly, the areas where the most US Americans are familiar with SI are gun calibers and recreational drugs. [n] (OK, I may have a warped sense of humor, but it's true) n. (not taught in schools)
- pmontra 12y ago
  Car engines are in liters over there I think. On the other side, TVs are in inches all around the world.
  - lispm 12y ago
    I also see centimeter for TV screens here in Germany. Example: LED TV, 98 cm (39 Zoll), Full HD, 100 Hz, DVB-T2/-C/-S2, Piano-schwarz
    - pmontra 12y ago
      Great, maybe it will spread to other countries :-) Actually I'd like to see the actual width of the screen (bezel included) rather than the diagonal, which is pretty useless. It's to the width that I've been looking at recently when I wanted to know which TV fits into the space I have for it.
      - lispm 12y ago
        I needed the height, recently.
blencdr 12y ago
"But g and kg continue to stupify me since I can't seem to find a useful frame of reference for those measures" actually 1kg is 1000 cm3 of water (1 cm3 for a gram). The idea behind that was purely scientific, not pragmatic.
pmontra 12y ago
> what common thing weighs a kg? Everything at 1 kg just seems to be too heavy I'm back from a mall so... 1 l of water is 1 kg. 1 l of wine too, for any practical purpose. Water is usually sold in 1 l bottles or 500 ml in restaurants and automatic machines. Pasta is usually sold in 500 g or 1k g boxes. Milk, sugar, flour and salt too. Oil and vinegar are usually 1 l. Butter is usually 250 g or even 125 g for smaller doses. Sure not many items seem to weight more than 1 kg but weight your clothes, you'll be surprised how heavy winter clothes are :-) Basically everything is priced either by the kg or by the liter (vegetables, cheese, meat, beverages, toothpaste, etc). It's required by law so we are able to compare different products of the same kind and different weight and get the better deal, quality aside. Obviously the label has a bigger figure for the price of the item than for the price by the kg. As you see, whatever the units are they a convenient for everyday use because all the economic and legal system is consistent with them. A transition in a country as large as the USA would be bumpy. I'd like to see it happen before I die but I won't bet anything on it, not until they are surpassed by some other country as the leader of the world. After that there might be some real economic incentive to a switch.