Dear District Leader and/or Math & Science Coordinator:
Celebrating Metric Week in South Carolina (October 8 – 14 this year) is very important for grades K-12. An announcement at each school in your district, and encouragement of metric system activities during and after Metric Week, would be an excellent idea. (Some easy-to-use ideas on celebrating Metric Week are available online at: www.usmetric.org.)
As you know, companies (which will eventually employ many of our students) are gradually producing products to metric system standards. This means that the jobs of tomorrow will require employees to be able to use metric units.
In addition, I believe that one of the reasons for poor scores made by U.S. students in international tests lies in the disadvantage that they do not have the knowledge to easily work with metric system units - a knowledge that the competing students from the rest of the nations of the world possess. A research study in the 1970s showed that from 6 to 8 months of elementary arithmetic could be eliminated from educational curriculums by the simple adoption of the metric system.
We now have ninety-four (94) teachers and administrators certified as Metric Specialists in our Certification Program for South Carolina. These individuals serve as metric resource persons and may help you develop activities as we celebrate Metric Week. Also, a teacher or administrator who plans to become a Certified Metric Specialist may reach me by phone at (803) 777-7007 or email jordan@gwm.sc.edu or mail (Center for Science Education, College of Arts & Sciences, Sumwalt, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208).
The certification is recommended and approved by the South Carolina Academy of Science (SCAS) and coordinated with the State Department of Education and the Office of Metric Programs at the National Institute of Standards & Technology, USC Department of Commerce. Special thank you goes to Governor Mark Sanford for his support of this worthwhile endeavor.
Sincerely,
Don Jordan, USC
Director, Center for the South Carolina Academy of Science
www.scacadsci.org or www.cosm.sc.edu/jordan under metric for information on CMS.
Check out the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Metric Programs at www.nist.gov/kids It will be FUN!
Teachers- this site has something for all grades!