Stories I tell my students: metric system joke

[darksumomo]

This week, I ran the metric system lab in my Environmental Science class. It replaced the microscope lab that was there when I got the job for two reasons, one positive and one negative (after reading, you decide which reason is which). First, I eliminated all the activities that used the microscopes because they involved harming animals (they were arthropods that get very little sympathy, but still) for very little educational gain and replaced them with activities that require the metric system. I then found out that my students were terrible with the metric system--thus the metric system lab, which I introduce to my students with the following one liner:

"My experience has been that there are only three groups of students in U.S. high schools and community colleges who know the metric system--the foreign born students, the science nerds...and the drug dealers."

Yes, I really do pause before finishing the observation. Comic timing.