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I am interested in the topic of measurement units and the traditional practice of treating customary units (inch-pound) units as the primary “system” of measurement and SI (metric units) as secondary. Traditionally, metric units are not how our kids intuitively think and metric units are those other units which we teach them to leap to from mathematical conversions.
With all the changes in science standards (which have changed/ is rapidly changing to a completely metric unit instruction model) and all the occupational pathways which now in the U.S include metric-mostly and in the case of healthcare (20% of our workforce) metric-only professions in addition to all the known STEM occupations, precision manufacturing jobs (all transport/ additive manufacturing) and the military opportunities for our kids which work in predominately in metric units, how does thinking intuitively in inch-pound units still benefit them? Are customary units really their best bet?
My personal opinion is that a primary focus on metric units is a good bet, although obviously they still have to learn about customary units. Better still, students should leave school carrying some approximate conversion factors in their heads, and have the computational fluency to be able to use them mentally.
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