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).
~~We don't really need any of those mnemonics because it's a perfect system~~
More seriously there is the "King Henry Died, Drinking Chocolate Milk" for the Kilo (1000) Hecto (100) Deca (10), Deci (0.1) Centi (0.01) Milli (0.001), but that doesn't really help with measuring on the spot, aside from being able to get the prefix right.
There's an average step being 1 meter, but thats less useful for people with shorter legs unless they want to join the ministry of silly walks.
One that I use often is converting meters per second to kilometers per hour. Because 1 meter per second is 3600 meters per hour or 3.6 kilometers per hour, you can actually skip the multiply by 3600 and then divide by 1000 and just multiply by 3.6.
But aside from time conversions, there isn't really anything else that can help because it's just moving the decimal.
Slightly related, you can tell how far away lightning is by listening for the thunder and counting the seconds. Sound travels at 346 m/s so every 3 seconds is roughly 1 kilometer away. But I suppose you can do the same for miles and count to 5.
Ty for the Mnemonic, definitely something I was looking for and even responded to someone else with the musical treble clef one. The thunder one will definitely help and something that can be passed onto kids (everyone basically knows the miles one). I'm gonna have to start compiling a list because all of you are awesome and there's a lot of information on here.
Just wish signs in the states were posted with KPH as well but that's extremely rare, I still associate maps with mileage and arrivals based on MPH so will be harder to transition that then anything else I imagine (120 miles away so about 2 hours on a hwy going 60 mph which is average for states).
Well something about 200 kms away will take 2 hours to get there on the highway going 100 km/h...
It's not as neat as 1 mile = 1 minute at 60mph, but it's still pretty easy to do the mental math.