Metric 101

Learning metric really only requires a few reference points and a way to use them in everyday life. It is up to you which things you want to start with first, whether you want to understand Celsius temperatures, or distances, or weight measures, etc.

It might help to buy some measuring devices or change the settings on what you use. For example, to help you use metric units, you might change your weather app to Celsius, switch your bathroom scale to kilograms, buy a 1-liter water bottle, and buy a meter stick. Scales and weather sensors are easily available at Walmart or Target. Meter sticks are available on Amazon and elsewhere.

If you haven't looked at it yet, see the page about how to learn the metric system for the right approach.

Temperature -
Degrees Celsius

To understand Celsius temperatures just remember:

Thirty's warm,
Twenty's nice,
Ten's cold,
Zero's ice.

That rhyme will get you 80% of the way. The rhyme suggests that if it is 14°C out, you may want a jacket, for example. For extra credit, you can remember that the boiling point of water is 100 °C and body temperature is 37 °C.

Distances

Can there be any doubt that millimeters make far more sense for small distances than fractions of an inch? Only a masochist would want to compare "three-eights inch" to "nine-sixteenths of an inch".

For slightly larger sizes you can use centimeters or stick with millimeters. Distances you can walk would be measured in meters, or kilometers if you really need the exercise. Here are a few reference points, but you will want to add your own as well.

Characteristics	Values
Width of a pencil	6 or 7 millimeters
Height of a doorknob	1 meter
Width of your living room	Go measure it! It could be 4 meters or 6 or more.
Length of your commute	Try using https://www.distancefromto.net to find the answer.
New York to LA	4000 kilometers by air

Weights

Weights you can hold in your hand range from grams to kilograms. Once you get into thousands of kilograms (think car-size weights), you might switch to metric tons, also known as tonnes. The word "tonne" is not simply a British spelling of ton, it means a metric ton, which is one thousand kilograms.

Characteristics	Values
Nickel coin	5 grams
An egg	50 grams
Can of peaches	450 grams
Full water bottle, 1 liter	1 kilogram
Newborn baby	2.5 - 4.0 kg
Lightweight adult	50 - 70 kg
Medium-weight adult	70 - 100 kg
Really big football player	140 kg
Horse	Several hundred kilograms
Honda Civic	1250 kg
Transit bus	8 to 20 tonnes, depending on how big

Volume

Small volumes (such as in a drinking glass) can be measured in milliliters. Buckets may hold tens of liters, and ponds may hold hundreds or thousands of cubic meters.

Characteristics	Values
Sip of water	A few milliliters
An egg	200 to 300 milliliters
Small office trash can	10 to 15 liters
Large trash can with wheels	250 to 400 liters

Did you know that one millimeter of water covering one square meter adds up to exactly one liter? There are close relationships between volume and length measurements.

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