Pat and Bill: Thanks for your good comments. Hopefully they will be included in the web site if technically possible.
The few pages which are on the site were not intended to be inclusive but a way to get people introduced to the SI and to get them started. That's why other sources were referenced. Students now get taught metric during a few days in a year and its done by math teachers in math classes rather than science teachers in science classes. This is by directive from the Maryland State Department of Education. Experts such as the two of you should produce a comprehensive but simple to understand and open copyright web site for all to use. You must keep it simple for the K-12 kids crowd to use and understand. You must realize that it MUST be simple with everyday examples, but correct. The diagram is most important for students to understand the relationship of units. It's a great teaching tool. A good way to begin is to produce an Automated Assisted Learning (AAL) course for the SI for use in simple and practical terms. It should be produced for game platforms like the Sony's PlayStations, Microsoft's Xbox and others. Sony has sold more than 50 million game platforms in North America alone, and that doesn't include Microsoft, Nintendo and others' game platforms. Sony's PlayStation2 costs 180 USD. The controls for game platforms fit little kids hands so kids don't need to hunt and peck on a computer keyboard. The PS2 plays CDs (music) as well as DVDs (movies) as well as games and, they are used at home, in cars and elsewhere. Sorry. Just being practical. Teachers' unions and school systems here in the US are opposed to this type of AAL. AAL should be used to teach content (math, SI, language, sciences, etc.) while teachers should be used to teach HOW to learn the content. Thanks for making your suggestions. Regards, Stan Doore ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pat Naughtin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 5:17 PM Subject: [USMA:28663] Re: Metric in Montgomery Co. Dear Bill, Thanks for sharing this with us. Your tone is polite, yet firm and informed. In this single letter, I feel that you have done more to promote the use of SI than you could with a thousand angry and abusive letters. I have to admit that I am seriously considering stealing your words to use as a model to tone down some of my stronger diatribes. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia -- on 14/2/04 6:09 AM, Bill Hooper at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Mr. Szesze: > > Mr. G. Stanley Doore directed me to your excellent metric pages of the > Montgomery County Public School web site starting at: > http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/science/instr/metric.htm > I applaud your actions to prepare your students for the real world by > emphasizing metric measurements in your curriculum. > > I hope you will not object to my making a couple comments on the page > on unit symbols. My references are to the English version of the > official document entitled "The International System of Units (SI)" 7th > addition 1998 (and its 2000 supplement when necessary) published by the > Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (International Bureau of > Weights and Measures). > > Under "Mass" I find: > Mg=T = megagram = Tonne (metric) > which is not correct. The SI symbol for tonne is a lower case "t" not a > capital "T". (ref: page 105, table 6, "Non-SI units accepted for use > with the International System") > > The names of the units like tonne (and litre) are not proper names and > so should not be capitalized except where you would capitalize other > words (such as at the beginning of a sentence or in titles or when all > caps are used). > > Most people well versed in SI would recommend the spelling "metre" and > "litre" rather than "meter" and "liter". > > In the various places where exponents are needed, those exponents are > not written as superscripts, as they should be. Examples are the > symbols for cubic metre and cubic decimetre. Other examples are in the > list of all the prefixes. I admit that it is possible that your web > page DOES produce the required superscripts and that my web browser > just cannot reproduce them. > > (I can't produce the superscripts in my email message either, but I > would hope that your web page would be sufficiently sophisticated that > it could. Either that, or add a note explaining that such exponents > should be written as superscripts even though your software is not > capable of doing so. I often use the caret mark (^) to indicate > exponentiation, thus: m^3 for cubic metres and 10^-6 for ten to the > minus 6 power.) > > Under SI Base Units, the word length is misspelled, a purely > typographical error, apparently. > > Under SI Prefixes, I find: > 10 -6 micro u > in which the symbol is not correct. The symbol for 10 to the -6 power > is the lower case Greek letter mu, not the lower case Latin letter "u". > The l.c. mu looks like this � (I hope). I have produce it correctly > on my copy of this email message but I cannot guarantee the you will > receive it correctly. That is unfortunately the case for a number of > special characters when they are transmitted from one computer to > another by email or internet. > > I am curious about your choice of prefixes to show in your list. It is > not complete although it is so long that it appears that you intended > it to be complete. It is missing the prefix and symbol for 10 to the > plus 24th power, which is yotta (symbol: capital Y). Also missing are > the prefixes for 10 to the minus 21st power and 10 to the minus 24th > powers. They are zepto (symbol: lower case z) for 10^-21 and yocto > (symbol: lower case y) for 10^-24. (Ref: page 103, Table 5, "SI > prefixes") > > I hope my comments above are helpful. I'm sure you agree that those of > us who are responsible for teaching the SI system need to be especially > diligent about getting the details correct. > > William Hooper > Certified Advanced Metric Specialist
