Celsius and Metric users of Lemmy, is there any cute tips or sayings that help generalize a measurement? - eviltoast

For instance, a foot…is basically a foot length. So there’s this foot-measuring waddle some people do walking literally heel-to-toe to get a general sense of the space. An inch is kinda a finger width, etc (they’re all not perfect by any sense).

I’ve decided to just take the plunge and basically re-learn all my measurement systems because I’m seeing less and less of those being used. I started with just memorizing all the conversions but that’s literally just adding another step. Everything I own basically has settings to switch or show both measurements (like tape measures) so I’m just going to stop using Fahrenheit and the United states “Customary System” all together.

Any tips or things you’re taught or pick up on? There’s a funny primary school poem for conversion of customary liquid measurements,

Land of Gallon

Introducing capacity measurement to learners can be challenging. To make this topic more accessible and memorable, we can integrate creative and interactive activities into our teaching approach. Using storytelling, we can transform the sometimes daunting task of learning measurement conversions into a whimsical tale.

  • In the Land of Gallon, there were four giant Queens.
  • Each Queen had a Prince and a Princess.
  • Each Prince and Princess had two children.
  • The two children were twins, and they were eight years old.

Once students are familiar with the story be sure they see the connection between the story characters and the customary units of capacity measurement. If necessary, label the story pieces with their corresponding units of measure: queen = quart, prince/princess = pint, children = cups, 8 years old = 8 fluid ounces. You can reduce the number of customary units in the story based on student readiness. link

tl;dr looking for anything to remember the hierarchy and memorizing the metric and Celsius measurement system, sometimes explained in schooling or local sayings. (if I had an example for those systems I would give one lol).

  • Bravo
    1·
    7 days ago

    I’m not trying to be a smartass, but we don’t need “Land of Gallon” mnemonics for the various measure, because they’re all base 10, specifically 103 (AKA 1,000, AKA a thousand). Take the unit of digital data, the byte:

    • A byte is a byte.
    • 1,000 bytes is a kilobyte*.
    • 1,000 kilobytes is a megabyte (a million bytes).
    • 1,000 megabytes is a gigabyte (a billion bytes).
    • 1,000 gigabytes is a terabyte (a trillion bytes).
    • Etc.

    Now take the unit of length, the meter:

    • A meter is a meter.
    • 1,000 meters is a kilometer.
    • 1,000 kilometers is a megameter (a million meters).
    • 1,000 megameters is a gigameter (a billion meters).
    • 1,000 gigameters is a terameter (a trillion meters).
    • Etc.

    Now take the unit of mass, the gram:

    • A gram is a gram.
    • 1,000 grams is a kilogram.
    • 1,000 kilograms is a megagram (a million grams).
    • 1,000 megagrams is a gigagram (a billion grams).
    • 1,000 gigagrams is a teragram (a trillion grams).
    • Etc.

    And it goes the other way too, for smaller and smaller measurements.

    • A thousandth of a gram is a milligram.
    • A thousandth of a milligram is a microgram (one millionth of a gram).
    • A thousandth of a microgram is a nanogram (one billionth of a gram).
    • A thousandth of a nanogram is a picogram (one trillionth of a gram).
    • Etc.

    So even if you’d never heard of a “watt” before, you’d still be able to tell that 1.21 gigawatts (the power required to operate a flux capacitor) is 1.21 billion watts. And even if you’d never heard of a liter before, you’d know that 330 milliliters (the volume of a can of coke) is 0.33 (or roughly one-third) of a liter.

    *Oh, and before anyone erroneously corrects me… 1024 bytes is a kibibyte.

    • Bravo
      1·
      7 days ago

      For conversion between imperial and metric, the only “rule of thumb” I can think of is that a kilogram is ROUGHLY two pounds.