Metric for Me!: A Layperson's Guide to the Metric System for Everyday Use with Exercises, Problems, and Estimations

by Robert W. Shoemaker

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0962798037
• ISBN13: 9780962798030
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Blackhawk Metric Supply
• Length: 60 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A friendly and practical introduction to metric units

"Metric for Me!" is an easy-to-read, fun, and practical introductory book on the metric system, and it includes a colorful reference wall chart. Robert Shoemaker's conversational style and witty observations make for a friendly and interesting reading experience. The hands-on exercises with their every-day applications are ideal for either classroom or individual learning. The brief, yet very informative, "Technological Supplement" extends the book's scope to such engineering-related quantities as fuel efficiency and pressure. Throughout, the emphasis is on using metric units without converting back and forth to other obsolete units.Gary P. Carver, former director of the federal government's Metric Program Office.

The most practical metric system learning tool available

In the U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Metric Programs,we maintained comprehensive libraries of literature and tools used to teach and to learn the metric system. Almost all drew focus on the mathematical relationship of metric units to their inch-pound equivalents through use of conversion tables. This book and chart, instead, relates metric units of measurement to objects and modules familiar in our everyday lives. Understanding is achieved by familiar visualization rather than by mathematical conversion. Anyone who has lived or traveled extensively abroad knows that this is how they became comfortable with metric measure.Use of this approach, especially in our school systems, would help people of all ages become more comfortable with the measurement system used by the rest of an ever, more interdependent world.

A quick and easy way to begin learning the metric system!

Metric For Me! is a very useful book for the layman seeking tolearn the basic units of the metric system for everyday use: themeter, liter and gram. It can be used for self-instruction or by educators as a classroom text. An accompanying wall chart entitled All You Need To Know About The Metric System For Everyday Use (which is frequently referred to in the text) is a valuable adjunct to learning. The chart may be purchased separately. The book is a practical, concentrated short-course focused on teaching the three measurement units. It is a "learn-by-doing" text with no conversions between metric and inch-pound units. This is the best way to learn the metric system. Each major section contains a series of hands-on exercises, review problems (with answers), and estimating activities which provide practice and help the learner build an understanding of metric-system concepts. It stresses learning by building a frame-of-reference so the learner can visualize the sizes of metric units. The book clearly explains use of the decimal system with metric-system units and the symbols that are used to represent the units. It is also a workbook, structured so the student can write answers to practice problems directly in the book.Other short sections of this text include: information about the history and development of the metric system; a short discussion of the superiority of the metric system over other measurement systems, including its simplicity and logic; rationale for the U.S. transition to metric-system usage; and a brief discussion of Celsius temperature. For educators using the book as a classroom text, there is a suggested schedule for structuring the course as well as directions for obtaining an instructor's manual. Most equipment and supplies needed for doing the exercises can be found in the average home. But, unless the book is studied in a classroom setting where metric measuring equipment is available, for self-instruction the learner needs to obtain (or have access to) a metric measuring tape, a meterstick, a metric scale for weighing small items, and a bathroom-type scale for body weight (mass).A 10-rating was given, because for the intended purpose of the book, which is learning to understand and use the meter, liter and gram, the text (especially when used with the chart) provides total instruction necessary for the learner to achieve this goal easily and quickly.