Baby Formula, the Pandemic, and the Metric System

I recently got pushback from a media outlet because it recorded a podcast five years ago about the metric system, and it didn’t want to go over old territory. Brother.

U.S. ounces and U.K. ounces
are not the same size! As you can see from the “9,” U.S. ounces are bigger.

Not only is our metric system landscape constantly changing, but it impacts us in ways we don’t even see coming at us. When you heard about our shortage of infant formula in the United States, did you consider that our lack of metric system adoption added at least two new hurdles to our babies (and others) getting safe food? Well, it did.

From our unthinking perspective: Why just solve a dozen different urgent, life-saving problems when you can add two more due to our lack of metric system adoption in the United States? I think it is safe to say that the U.S.’s continued isolation in our measurement system does not bode well for the world in general. (My blog. My opinion.) However, it is a correctable problem. I think we all deserve more information about this measurement problem (see my request for a Congressional hearing with the House Subcommittee on Science, Space, & Technology) on our 200+ year measurement car wreck. But there are resources on this subject in the short term: National Institute of Standards and Technology.

We added at least two obstacles into our American baby formula crisis through our lack of international measurement standards

The Federal Trade Commission administers the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA). The law itself directs the agency to put into place:

….additional regulations where necessary to prevent consumer deception (or to facilitate value comparisons) with respect to descriptions of ingredients, slack fill of packages, use of “cents-off” or lower price labeling, or characterization of package sizes.

https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/statutes/fair-packaging-labeling-act

Let’s face it, a global pandemic is horrible, and we’ve been going through it for almost three years. Just trying to keep everyone safe from invisible, evolving viruses is an emergency on its own.

Then, we created a situation we fundamentally shouldn’t have. Because of the COVID pandemic, supply chains broke down in many unanticipated ways. All over the place. One place parents really felt it was a loss of infant formula and mixes. While the problem had multiple factors, I only want to address a couple of the metric-system-adoption failures here.

Problem #1: Lack of dual labeling at a minimum as required by current law for product importation (U.S. customary and metric system [SI] units). At the minimum. Other laws are also at play here. I can’t possibly cite all of them. But, I’m sure that others in the government could produce this information if called upon to do so.

Problem #2: Potential conversions errors when mixing unfamiliar units associated with the metric system and U.S. customary units. Getting that information out to parents may, or may not, have been a successful/unsuccessful campaign. I have no idea, but what’s below should, to me, have been completely unnecessary.

Try to convince me this isn’t stupid and dangerous for everyone in this country.

As I understand it, the original problem started with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration missing contamination at an infant formula manufacturing site in the United States. This created a national supply-chain crisis. The manufacturer, Abbott was also to blame. It’s a huge outfit with more than 100,000 employees. The White House recognized this issue’s importance immediately and started working on it from various angles as children/infants (and others) suddenly couldn’t get the food they needed to live.

The Biden Administration went so far as to fly formula from other countries to the United States. Called “Operation Fly Formula,” A statement dated June 22, 2022, says:

In May, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the agency is exercising enforcement discretion so that Nestlé can export additional infant formula into the U.S. Nestlé will import both standard and specialty infant formulas, including…

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/06/22/president-biden-announces-ninth-operation-fly-formula-mission/

Let’s look at the phrase “… the agency is exercising enforcement discretion…”

Since the FPLA is meant to avoid deception directed at consumers, and crooks have used units of measure since time immemorial*, so all commodities must state their contents in the prevailing units (be they metric, U.S. customary, or both), including for infant food. It’s a health a safety and a commerce issue.

Dual labeling

One problem we have is that packages in our country need to be “dual labeled” where there is enough room to do so, (see National Institute of Standards and Technology labeling site). This also involves the Uniform Packaging and Labeling Regulation.

Of those packages examined, 17% declared the net quantity of contents in only metric units. Almost 57.5% of those metric packages were found to be noncompliant with current FPLA dual labeling requirements. [Emphasis mine.]

https://www.nist.gov/pml/owm/laws-and-regulations/packaging-and-labeling

So, under the law, you have to dual-labeled products for distribution in the United States. Of course, infant formula never meant for export to the United States would only have metric system units on them. That was never a problem until we tried to import infant formula during a pandemic. Then, suddenly, it became part of a much larger problem. Completely unnecessary and avoidable.

As indicated by the FDA Guidance Document: “Guidance for Industry: Infant Formula Enforcement Discretion Policy, dated May 2022“:

FDA intends to temporarily exercise enforcement discretion concerning specific requirements for infant formulas that may not comply with certain statutory and regulatory requirements and is seeking information from manufacturers regarding their products’ safety and nutritional adequacy. 

Well, that solved one problem…

Conversion errors

So, the Administration did lots of things to supply our babies with food, and other countries tried to help us in an emergency. The White House lifted the dual labeling requirement for the time being. Of course, that leads to problems shifting from an import problem to a “consumer use” problem and the potential of conversion errors while mixing formulas. Such a problem would be Impossible in a solely SI world.

Here is my problem with writing about conversion errors. I couldn’t find any fundamental, accessible research on error rates. I found LOTS of things that said conversion errors are bad, but I could never get a good enough answer about what rates of conversion errors there are. But errors are made. Everyday. I assure you. We can’t stop all conversion errors, but we can stop the stupid ones like constantly trying to use two incompatible measurement systems side by side for 200+ years in this country.

So, what happens when Americans suddenly end up with only metric system units on hand? Easy. They get confused, so the federal government must then get the word out about using these mostly unfamiliar measurement units, so their kids don’t get sick and die from malnutrition. Whatever path led us here could not possibly be a good one. How much did it cost to whip up the poster above, and how much time and effort went into getting that conversion guidance into the right hands? If the efforts were successful, then lots and lots of resources, from the federal government right down to the doctors’ offices. Those are steep taxpayer dollars, my friend.

If we only used metric system units, both of these problems would disappear. Once and for all.

Please help get the word out.

Thanks,

Linda

Big News and the Metric System

This replica of a kilogram is on  display at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is part of Department of Commerce. The domes are to protect it from environments that might alter it.

First, the kilogram vote passed on Friday! We now have a scientifically defined kilogram. Second, I was interviewed by Vox News for their daily podcast on Friday, November 16, 2018. I’m in the second half of the interview.

The metric system (or SI as it is known around the world) was first implemented in France back in 1795. Since then, almost every country in the world has adopted this set of measures with the United States being one of the few holdouts from full adoption. (The others are Liberia and Burma/Myanmar.)

Back In 1799 the meter was defined by a prototype meter bar. Later, a scientific standard for the meter was defined in 1960, and was redefined in 1983. It is currently the length of the path that light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

If you have the precision equipment to make that measurement, all those “meters” around the world are exactly the same.

In contrast

To this day, the definition of the kilogram is a carefully protected platinum-iridium prototype that is the kilogram. It is held by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (or the Bureau International Poids et Mesures) outside of Paris. Should anything happen to that physical standard it could theoretically change what the kilogram is around the world.

Having a physical standard/prototype has inherent problems. There are additional physical standards or “artifacts” that are stored around the world which are periodically compared to the one in France to make sure they all have the same mass. However, over time, the duplicate kilograms have “drifted” away from that the one in France. (Several of these prototypes are held by our own National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland.) That’s a problem when things like oils from people’s skin or even dust could impact its mass if it is not perfectly protected. And perfect, in this sense, is impossible.

As a result, a scientifically defined standard has been sought—until recently—without success. Much of this quandary was captured in Robert P. Crease’s book, World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement, which was published in 2012.

Crease relates that two different technologies were being applied to solve the problem of creating the kilogram in the laboratory. One was the “Avogadro method” that “…realizes the mass unit using a certain number of atoms…”

(I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because I’ve yet to understand it myself.)

Crease also relates…

The “watt balance” approach, on the other hand, ties the mass unit to the Planck constant, via a special device that exploits the equality of SI units of mechanical and electrical power. p. 255

(Again, very complicated.)

You can read a Vox News story that explores more of the science here.

Today, on November 16, the International Bureau (of which the U.S. is a member) will vote to determine if the scientific standard for the kilogram will be based on the “watt balance” method.

Should that occur (and it is expected to pass) the new standard, will go into effect on May 20, 2019.

Why May 20 next year? Because May 20 is the 144th anniversary of the signing of the 1875 Treaty of the Meter. That document gave the General Conference on Weights and Measures “…the international authority that ensures wide dissemination of the SI and modifies the SI as necessary to reflect the latest advances in science and technology.”

This is a developing story so stay tuned to this page for further developments.

Linda

Back to School for the Metric System

One of the supporters of my documentary project is Nicholas Seet and as a result of my contact with him, I started a class a month ago called “Financing the Entrepreneurial Enterprise.”

During the first class we did briefs on the various projects we wanted to launch. The reaction to this documentary by the class members was very positive. In fact, one of the other students told me she’d worked in international trade and conversions had caused problems because sometimes people got them wrong and the company received less money than they should have.

Dual labeling can cause mistakes for employees at the register

In another case, a local business owner told how dual labeling was causing her problems. She owns a pet accessories store and sometimes employees in a hurry charge the kilogram price rather than the pound price. Thus, they’re charging less than half of what they should and she loses money every time that happens.

Back to class

One of the big pushes of the class is to raise a small amount of money ($2,000 or less) to help finance our projects (or small parts of them). For the class, we’re working through something called Main Street Crowd that focuses on community-based fundraising efforts. Within this context, it’s to give us successful crowdfunding experience to help prepare some of us to finance larger amounts through sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

My project ask will be $1,500 and will be earmarked for my travel and time in Washington D.C. where I plan to have a number of on-camera interviews. Some of the folks I hope to meet with include the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Smithsonian Institution, Center for Science in the Public Interest and others since they’re all based in the D.C. area.

I’ll use Main Street Crowd to raise money within my class

I’ve already drafted and gotten feedback on my campaign content for the project’s Main Street Crowd page and yesterday we were supposed to have draft scripts ready. In addition to my script, I showed a Prezi presentation while I read the script as kind of a storyboard. Since Prezi allows you to animate your content (kind of like PowerPoint on steroids) it had a pretty good flow.

I received a couple of comments for improvement but the instructor said I could basically record that presentation, add the narration, begin with some live video of myself and I’d have a pretty compelling video for the campaign. What I was planning for was much more time consuming so that came as a welcome relief. I still need to clean it up since it was intended to just give the class an idea of what the images would look like. Once it’s ready, it will be part of my Main Street Crowd page and you can take a look. I know I have a larger number of international readers of this blog and, yes, you can contribute if you’d like.

In other news

– Because of my presentation at the MidSchool Math Conference earlier this year (the conference is already slated for next year) I was approached to take part in a career fair later this month in Taos, about 80 km from where I live. I need to pull together a 45-minute presentation for middle school students that I’ll repeat five times during the sessions. Will probably lose my voice by the end of the day but the more I can get the word out on this project, the better. Not sure if I’ll present at the conference next year. I have an application in.

– Last month was my busiest month of all time. Thanks for helping this happen!

The highest bar represents almost 9,000 pageviews for September. The dark blue bar is for unique pageviews. Most visitors click on two of my pages.

My Metric System Demo at the Los Alamos Science Fest

Los Alamos Science Fest was Saturday

On Saturday I spent four hours talking up the metric system at the Science Festival here in Los Alamos. Specifically, I was trying to help people understand how much easier the metric system is to use in the kitchen. Rather than having all those volumetric cups (and a half, and third and quarter) and tablespoons and teaspoons (and all those fractions down to an eighth) you really just need two things: a liquid measuring cup and a scale that measures in grams (most electronic ones can convert between different units).

Not only is a scale a more precise and consistent measure in the kitchen, it’s also easier than what we’re used to in this country. Since we don’t use the metric system here, most people have no idea how handy a scale can be in the kitchen. I wanted to show them.

Here’s what I did:

I asked if people were willing to take a metric challenge. (There were a lot of children there and almost all of them were game to give it a try.)

Toy coins worked well for the demo since they don’t fit neatly into the cup

I then gave two participants each a one-cup measuring cup and had them measure a cup of toy coins (I wanted objects that would not fit neatly within its area). When they were done, we put the cups on scales to how closely they measured in grams. In some cases, even when the cups looked like they had the same amount in them, the mass varied usually by around 5-7 grams but throughout the day I saw measures all the way from 30 grams up to more than 100. That’s quite a difference!

While the they were measuring, I told the adults, or other observers, some of my points about wasting our kids’ time in schools by teaching them a complicated system that no one else uses. I also pointed out only needing two things to measure with saves space and hassle in the kitchen.

Using the metric system, all you need is something to measure wet and dry ingredients (left) instead of the stuff we have to keep track of now (right)

Once that was done, I showed the parents how easy it is to measure ingredients right into the bowl and bypass dirtying all those other measuring cups and tablespoons we currently have to deal with.

I also talked about something that happened to me not too long ago when I had a recipe that called for a cup and a half of brown sugar. Not only do you have to pack the brown sugar to get the right amount, I also debated whether I wanted to wash a spoon (to dish out the sugar) and two measuring cups or a spoon and one measuring cup but have to pack it three times. In the end I decided I didn’t want to do either and looked up how much brown sugar that would be in grams. Then I put the bowl I was using on my scale, zeroed it out using the tare function, and then measured that amount directly into the bowl. In the end I only had to wash a single spoon.

In addition to the demo, I had a primer (Cooking in a metric kitchen (pdf)) on using scales in the kitchen. While many sites don’t include metric measures, several do including the wonderful allrecipes.com (though it takes an extra click to make the conversion). I also had a hard copy of the Metric Maven’s metric cookbook along with its link and the source for a metric chocolate chip cookie recipe from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. If you have additional sites or references to assist with metric cooking, send them to me at milebehind@gmail.com and I’ll share as appropriate.

Also had an opportunity to reconnect with Dave Schwellenbach who had the booth next to me with his Kraz-E-Science demo. You can check out his website here.

More blogs are in the works. Thanks for checking in.

Linda

American Metric System Hypocrisy?

Start planning your World Metrology Day celebration now!

May 20 will be the 139^th anniversary of the United States as one of the original signatory nations of the Convention of the Meter also known as the Treaty of the Meter. On that day the world took a leap forward and officially recognized the need to protect and improve the metric system (or SI as it is known on the rest of the planet), through the creation of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). It is an intergovernmental organization that comes under the authority of the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) and the supervision of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM). On that day in Paris there was agreement on how the organization would be financed and managed, with member governments acting in common accord on all matters.

Ahem, then there’s the United States saying one thing and doing another

Despite:

• Our first president’s (Washington…) speech about the need for uniformity of “currency, weights and measures” in the country during his first address in 1790;
• Our instituting decimal money in 1786 (100 pennies and 10 dimes in a dollar);
• Our passing the Metric Act of 1866 that made it illegal to refuse to trade in the metric system;
• Our signing of the above Treaty of the Meter in 1875 and accepting meter and kilogram prototypes in 1893;
• Our passage of the Mendenhall Order (pdf) in 1893 that defines all U.S. customary units in terms of metric units. (As in an inch is 2.54 centimeters, not the other way around);
• Our passage of the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 by congress;
• And Executive Order 12770, Metric Usage in Federal Government Programs (pdf) in 1991 intended to “implement the congressional designation of the metric system of measurement as the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce,”

yet, I’m still buying my hamburger by the pound, gasoline by the gallon and fabric by the yard. What’s wrong with this picture?

Plenty and that’s why I’ve been researching his topic for almost two years. I trust the documentary I plan to make will raise awareness of how far behind the rest of the world we’ve gotten and we’ll want to do something about it.

To commemorate this 139^th anniversary, also known as World Metrology Day, I’ll give a talk at Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos, New Mexico on May 21 (Wednesday) at 6 p.m. The talk is free and open to the public. If you’re in the neighborhood, I hope you’ll drop by. I’ll try to be both informative and entertaining.

Just so you know, the theme for this year’s World Metrology Day is “Measurements and the global energy challenge” and is sponsored by the BIPM and the International Organization of Legal Metrology (BIML).

According to Stephen Patoray, the current director of the BIML:

While measurements are central to most basic decisions on energy usage, there are many other aspects of the global energy challenge which are much more complex:

• global population growth;
• emerging economies;
• complex technologies;
• increasing consumer demands;
• higher quality of life;
• etc.

According to the site’s press release:

World Metrology Day is an annual event during which more than 80 countries celebrate the impact of measurement on our daily lives.

Feel free to join in to spread the word about all the advantages the metric system has versus our cumbersome U.S. customary units.

While not new, I found an interview where Rachel Maddow celebrated World Metrology Day back in 2010. You can view the seven minute clip here.

I hadn’t come across this before and was surprised to learn that several scientists with the National Institute of Standards were awarded Nobel Prizes for their work with time and temperatures during the past few years including: David J. Wineland (2012), John (Jan) L. Hall (2005) and William D. Phillips (1997) (More on them here.)

It’s not too early to start planning for next year

I don’t know that we’ll be in a better position to participate in World Metrology Day by the 140^th anniversary (2015) but hopefully we will by the 150^th anniversary, or sooner, if enough people in this country decide to do something about it.

Thanks,

Linda

The MidSchool Math Conference

The next MidSchool Math conference is already in the planning stages

My presentation on Math and the Metric System: Using What’s Easy at the MidSchool Math conference went very well. The session had 50 people registered and while not everyone showed up, most folks did. Since the attendees were mostly math teachers I felt I had an opportunity to get them thinking about the metric system in new ways that they could take back their classrooms and hopefully their lives. The group was receptive and had lots of questions for me. They were also able to interact and ask each other questions about their metric classroom experiences.

Hands-on opportunities

I had scheduled some hands-on exercises using length and mass to help them get used to applying metric units. While length didn’t present much of a problem, only a couple of people used scales in the kitchen. This gave them a chance to play with some of the equipment I brought. (Let’s face it, pretty much every ruler and tape measure today has both U.S. customary and metric units on them but most people are so familiar with measuring cups that it doesn’t occur to them to use a scale in the kitchen though it’s far easier.)

I also brought some metric-only rulers supplied by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (centimeters on one side, millimeters on the other) and they cleaned me out of those—which I consider a good sign.

Avoid conversions!!!

A couple of folks on the U.S. Metric Association (USMA) listserve who communicated with me prior to my talk wanted to make sure that I didn’t encourage conversions during my presentation. Not only was that explicit in my presentation—twice no less—but I also pointed out that I’d gotten that feedback from USMA to try to drive the point home. I think it worked.

After all, the metric system was introduced at a time of widespread illiteracy and even unschooled french farmers and tradesmen learned it easily enough. It should be a cinch for today’s high-tech Americans.

One attendee told me she thought it was the best presentation she’d seen so far (I was in the afternoon on the second day) but I have to say that the keynote speaker on the first day, Dan Meyer, was extremely good. He stressed the need to engage kids studying math in the classroom in three acts and bring them along for a story where they really want to figure out what happens. Let’s face it, everyone gets more interested if there’s a good story involved. I think the audience heard him.

Testing my story structure

For my part, I got a chance to try out part of my story structure for the documentary on an audience, hear questions and find out what parts of the narration were of the most interest by their level of attention. There’s just nothing better than trying out your material on a real audience. I’m very pleased with the results but I will continue to refine and expand.

Since I did attend a couple of sessions other than my own, I also had a chance to engage with additional teachers and all seemed very interested in what I’m trying to do. It was only one of the other presenters who gave me pause when he suggested that the next generation would take care of metric conversion in the United States. (Only other time I’ve heard that before [good idea but not now] was in John Quincy Adams’ report to Congress back in 1821—haunts us every time we get serious about metric adoption by the way…) I quickly realized that there was no point in arguing the issue with him but would have loved to point out that in the 30 years since the U.S. Metric Board was disbanded no “next  generation” has come along so far and perhaps he’s part of the “next generation” that should do something. Ah well, I tried to be as persuasive as possible under the circumstances.

As should always be the case, the teacher and learner roles got reversed during my session and I walked away with some additional things to think about and research.

For instance:

• I’ve been told the military uniformly uses the metric system but others have told me that’s not true. True status will take some digging.
• When converting from miles to kilometers, what happens to the mile markers since they’re currently used to help drivers know how many miles to their next exit?
• What’s the best way to convert existing recipes into metric?

The cost of conversion

Of course, the biggest unanswerable question I get asked is how much would it cost to convert to the metric system in this country. I don’t think anyone has a good grasp on that since it’s been so long since the question was seriously considered.

Aside from the cost of conversion errors, and time savings in schools and elsewhere on an individual basis, imagine how much time it takes to design things for multiple countries with dual labeling—including the use of more ink to print both sets.

Converting to the metric system will have a mostly one-time cost while failure to convert to the metric system continues to cost us, and cost us and cost us…

Linda

The Metric System in the Supermarket — Part 1: A Little History

Proposed new nutritional labeling

Last Thursday (February 27, 2014) the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced new nutritional labeling standards for packaging in the United States. The original law, called the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, was put in place in 1990 in an effort:

1. To clear up consumer’s confusion about food labels
2. To encourage consumers in making health food choices, and
3. To encourage product innovation so that manufacturers are given an incentive to improve the quality of the food and make more healthy food choices available to consumers.
                                           Virginia Wilkening
                                           Food and Drug Administration

It was probably less effective on the last point than the first two but let’s examine a little history.

Measurement and trade

Since people have traded with one another, sellers have tried to cheat their customers to their own ends. That’s one of the reasons why throughout history there has been resistance to setting measurement standards (the metric system included). The new  regulations adjust serving sizes (mostly upward) but also highlight the nutritional information on the labels.

Serving sizes

While researching this project, my contact at National Institute of Standards and Technology recommended a book called The Thumb on the Scale or the Supermarket Shell Game by A. Q. Mowbray. With a copyright date of 1967, it relates that after World War II, consumers (quaintly referred to as “housewives” throughout the book) were getting up in arms because, as they purchased more convenience foods, they started having problems figuring out how much product to buy because the serving sizes were not standard. Each company made isolated decisions regarding what an “average” serving size constituted.

To one manufacturer, a serving of peaches might be two halves; to his competitor, it might be one half or three halves. It is like buying by the hat—and using the seller’s hat as a measure. p. 92.

In case the problem with having non-standard serving sizes for food isn’t readily apparent, let’s apply that logic to something we deal differently with today: gasoline.

The scenario goes like this: You need some more fuel and there are two gas stations across the street from each other that have determined their own “serving sizes.” Lo and behold, the price of one of the serving sizes is less expensive than the other. Is it really a better deal or just a smaller serving size? Without further investigation, there is no way for the consumer to know and that’s exactly what was going on in the grocery stores. A glance at two, say, cereal boxes next to each other might seem like the one with more serving sizes for the same price is to be a better deal. But would that impression be accurate? At the time, the answer was “No.” Enter the federal government.

While the serving sizes have been fixed by the federal government since the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 (metric units were added to labels in 1992), there was plenty of resistance from the food industry according to the book since deception would become more difficult via that method.

And manufacturers still play games with us

Don’t worry about the food industry. They’re still finding way to take advantage of us today. You don’t have to read many issues of Consumer Reports to see an example where a reader has bought a usual item only to get home and realize the new box or bag contains less than when it was last purchased. Just because the manufacturer has adjusted the weight or volume in print (according to regulations) doesn’t mean they’re not trying to hide something. (When was the last time you saw a box emblazoned with “Now, less for the same price!”?) Yet it downsizes product contents all the time.

Let me tie in the metric system more closely: the labels will continue to be a mishmash of metric and U.S. customary measures (for new readers of the column, we don’t use Imperial units in the country, but our units are derived from them). In the example, the serving size is expressed in both customary and metric units but the nutritional content is only in metric units and thank goodness. If they were in fraction of ounces, you wouldn’t know if they were weight or volume (metric units only express mass—which relate to the gravity of the planet you’re on) or some other incomprehensible subunit. For instance:

Protein = 3 grams = 0.10582oz

If I tell you that a gram is roughly the same mass as a standard (that word again) paperclip, that’s fairly easy to imagine. Now, try to imagine a unit of 0.1 of an ounce. A bit tougher for most people I’d guess.

This post has run as long, or longer, than it should. Stay tuned. There’s more to learn.

Linda

Metric System Presentation at March 2014 National Math Conference

The conference hopes to reverse the trend of declining math score in mid school

Next month (March 28 to be exact) I’m making a presentation on the metric system at a national conference in Santa Fe called MidSchool Math thanks to project supporters with Imagine Education. The theme of the entire conference is Stop the Drop and refers to international testing standards that show in 4^th grade, American kids are slightly above their cohorts in other countries in math but by 8^th grade, they score slightly below. It’s the hope of the conference’s organizers to start to reverse this trend. During the three-day conference, sessions will cover a variety of topics from Mathematical Icebreakers to a keynote session on How to Make Kids Hate Math. My session: Math the Metric System: Using What’s Easy. So far, eight people have registered but there’s more than a month to go.

The cost of the conference is $475 or $525 (that whole early bird thing) and if you’re a teacher in New Mexico, you could be eligible for a stipend of up to $1,000 to cover the conference and its associated costs. Check it out or spread the word.

Having written on the subject of education and the metric system, I have a place to start to build my presentation content, particularly on the subject of Common Core State Standards for math as they relate to the metric system. My session will be an hour and fifteen minutes long so I’ll have time to cover lots of material and, with the assistance of our federal government in the form of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (thanks Elizabeth!), I’ll be able to supply attendees with some modest metric supplies and games to take back to their classrooms.

Total side note: I was just looking for meter sticks on Amazon and came across “One Meter (39-1/2″) Wood Stick Ruler.” Really? You’d think if you were looking for a meter stick (and not a yardstick), you wouldn’t need to have the inches spelled out for you. How much time is wasted in this country having to continually include both metric and U.S. customary numbers? Then I found this in a description: “Meterstick is lightweight and ideal for the classroom. It measures 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick.” Pathetic. Let’s please get our metric act together.

I plan to devote quite a bit of time to developing the presentation. When people walk out the door, I want them to say “Wow” but in a good way. That will take time, research, rehearsal and matching my subject matter to my audience. I realize that public speaking frightens a lot of people (some studies rate it as the number one human fear!) but I don’t currently have that problem. I say currently because at one point in my career I wasn’t making a lot of presentations but once I needed to again, I was able to relax pretty quickly. My largest audience to date: more than 500 people. The only caveat to my being relaxed is I have to know my subject matter. That shouldn’t be a problem in this case.

Luckily, I also have some teaching background and found that I’m pretty accurate about being able to estimate how much material I can cover within a particular time period. Of course, it’s always a good idea to have a little extra, so in case you find yourself running short, you can continue a little longer if needed. As the saying goes, “Always leave them wanting more,” but you also want to make sure people walk away feeling like their time was well spent.

I’m also hoping there will be a method for people to feedback on how I did. I find constructive criticism very helpful. While it’s unlikely that I’ll give this exact talk again, who knows what parts of it could come in handy as the project progresses.

It will be nice to get out and interact with the attendees and the other presenters. I’m sure I’ll learn things that will benefit the documentary in ways that won’t seem obvious watching the end product but if you follow this blog, you may see how they ultimately inform me.

I’ll be sure to share what I find out that’s interesting and fun…stay tuned.

Linda

Waiting for the Metric System Change of the Guard

Having written about the anti-metric system-adoption stance taken by the director of our country’s National Institute for Standards and Technology last week, it got me thinking more about the counter arguments offered during our 200+ year history on why some people are so firmly against the metric system.

As far as I know, the first formal anti-metric group in the United States was the International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting Anglo-Saxon Weights with Charles Latimer as one of its organizers.

In his book The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World, Ken Alder says of him:

Charles Latimer was a devout Christian, a successful railway engineer, and an avid pyramidologist who believed that the ‘sacred inch’ had been built into the Great Pyramid at Giza and had been transmitted across the millennia to the United States. He also had visceral contempt for atheism, the French, and metric system.

Latimer went on to write a 65-page hardcover booklet published in 1880 titled The French metric system, or The Battle of the Standards: A discussion of the comparative merits of the metric system and the standards of the great pyramid.  In it he relates his beliefs mentioned above yet also noted:

Certainly the advantage of a decimal system is of paramount importance, and there is no reason why we should not have a decimal system, deduced from our measure of inch, foot and year, or multiples of our unit, the inch. (page 13)

Fast-forward a hundred years later and a book called Metric Madness: Over 150 reasons for NOT converting to the Metric System put out by the American Institute for Weights and Measures in 1980 (the organization began in 1917) relates:

Nobody disputes the advantages of decimals. The question is not whether decimals are better. This is precisely why we have decimalized so many of our measurements so extensively which, unfortunately, so many of the decimal proponents fail to realize. (page 58)

I find it interesting that so many anti-metric folks uphold the logic of a decimal system but want to decimalize our current units or retain our system for applications such as binary units (the second quote).

Let’s take a moment to look at the currently anti-metric Wall Street Journal:

• In November it published an anti-metric article to coincide with Thanksgiving last year called: “Cooking a Poundcake in a Metric Oven Is No Easy Task”

which includes the line:

“The keepers of America’s metric flame are the roughly 300 members of the U.S. Metric Association. By most measures, their efforts in recent decades have failed.”

and in

• “Measuring Metric’s Limits in the Grocery Aisle” from April of last year.

It’s lead sentence reads:

The fight to persuade Americans to ditch English units for the metric system in their everyday lives is largely lost.

Pretty much shows the paper’s slant doesn’t it?

However, the publication didn’t always take such a position and in its informative book (that’s a review so I can now quote from it)* The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Metric System, published in 1977 indicates:

The metric system is a system of measurement that is simpler and more logical than the customary of English system of measurement…However, once the adult becomes familiar with only three of four basic metric units, the entire metric system falls into place and usually becomes the preferable measurement system. (page 9)

It also praises the metric system in other sections of the publication as well including how decimal arithmetic should be easy for Americans since our currency is based on the metric system (page 12).

While I don’t anticipate the Wall Street Journal warming up to the metric system anytime soon, Carl Bialik (who wrote the grocery store article above) pointed out in a May 31, 2013 article that the Washington Bridge collapse might have been contributed to by the use of dual measurement systems in this county.  In his article “Will This Bridge Fall? It’s Hard to Say” it says simply:

Adding to the confusion, states and the federal government maintain separate databases of bridge ratings and characteristics, and these don’t always line up, for reasons including the piecemeal adoption of the metric system and data sharing that takes place only once a year.

Who knows, maybe the Wall Street Journal will eventually swing its position back to where it was forty years ago and seek to help Americans (and its own writers) embrace, understand and use the metric system as it did once. It even has the book that it can dust off towards those goals

Fingers crossed.

Linda

* The book states that no part of it may be reproduced in any form by any means without permission except for brief extracts quoted for review.

Metric Resources (A World to Share)

In the half year that I’ve been working on this project, it has been my pleasure to come in contact with a number of metric like-minded folks who have been moving in this direction far longer than I. I’d like to take this opportunity to share their sites with you in case you find them of interest. (I sure hope so or else why are you reading this thing?)

National Institute for Standards and Technology—U.S. Department of Commerce
There is tons of information on the main website at http://www.nist.gov/index.html, If you want to drill down to the metric system resources, they’re under the Physical Measurement Laboratory (http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/index.cfm) and then you get down to the resources for the metric system: http://www.nist.gov/pml/wmd/metric/metric-program.cfm.

U.S. Metric Association
There is a phenomenal amount of information on this organization’s pages and it’s been around since 1916. (I love people who don’t give up the good fight.) It was the extremely sad litany of information on this page (http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/dates.htm) that led me to embark on my current quest. Feel free to look around and join the organization. I’m sure they’d love for you to sign on as a member and it’s only $30 a year (see page for multi-year discounts) to help along its fine work. http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/.

The Reddit Metric Pages
Reddit, which refers to itself as “The frontpage of the Internet,” has its own metric posting pages. The metric section already has more than 5,000 members and it’s free to join in: http://www.reddit.com/r/metric. There are also now subpages devoted to metric cooking: http://www.reddit.com/r/MetricCooking. Come on in and look around. You might decide to stay for awhile.

The Metric Maven
The Maven has spent considerable thought on metric issues and shares his insights on his blog, which he adds to on a regular basis. Yes, we cross promote because we’re both heading in the same direction. Just makes sense to me. Go to http://themetricmaven.com/ to read more.

Metric Pioneer
Another advocate, this site describes itself as “MetricPioneer.com is dedicated to United States President Andrew Johnson and to Metric Pioneer Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794 CE) Father of Modern Chemistry, who helps construct the metric system during the French Revolution while working alongside Benjamin Franklin in France.” Metric products are for sale here. As far as I know, he’s currently got this market cornered. Check it out: http://metricpioneer.com/.

M Power
One of the first people to reach out to me, the lady behind this site states: “Our goal is to empower K-12 students to succeed in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Military (STEMM) by preparing them to think in STEMM’s occupational language.” Find out more at http://www.helpmpower.org/. Another nonprofit organization, help out if you can.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
While this might seem like a niche organization, these are the folks are the keepers of National Metric Week (the week in which November 10 falls [as in 10/10]). Its mission: “The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is the public voice of mathematics education, supporting teachers to ensure equitable mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students through vision, leadership, professional development, and research.” More at http://www.nctm.org/.

U.K. Metric Association
This organization has been supportive of my efforts from early on. While the U.K. is mostly metric, it’s not all the way there and we’re holding them back. Let’s stop that. For more information, go to http://ukma.org.uk/.

National Measurement Institute
I have it on good authority that Australia has embraced the metric system and Imperial units are difficult (if not impossible) to find—which is a sign of real success. This is a country we may want to emulate when our time comes. For more information, go to http://www.measurement.gov.au/.

I know less about these folks, but they’re out there so let’s cheer them on:

Go Metric USA
Its pages state: “GO metricUSA^TM is an organization dedicating to promoting the adoption of the metric system in the United States of America and to help industries cut costs.” http://www.gometricusa.org/default.html.

Go Metric America
Don’t know much about this either, but it follows me on Twitter and frequently retweets me. Its Facebook page states that its cause is to “Educate, promote and encourage daily usage of the Metric System. Make SI the only measurement standard of science, math, industry, trade, and education in the USA.” Here is its link on Twitter https://twitter.com/GoMetricAmerica and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/GoMetricAmerica.

Metricate America (Metric8America)
Don’t see a website for this one, but the Twitter page is https://twitter.com/Metric8America.

If I’ve missed you, I apologize. Let me know. Relevant ones can always go into another blog on the subject.

Linda