Hundreds of years ago, people measured the length of objects against human body parts. For example, a person's foot was used to represent one foot, the width of a thumb was an inch, and the space between outstretched arms from fingertip to fingertip was a fathom (6 feet). It is easy to see why this way of measuring could cause problems. What would happen if your sister had big feet and you had little feet? Your measurements would not be the same!

When the British began to settle North America, the colonies used British weights and measures that were common for the day. There was still confusion among measures, however, which became even more confusing after the American Revolution as all 13 colonies tried to find a uniform standard for weights and measures. Also, the French, Spanish, and Dutch each had their own standards and no one agreed.

Finally, in 1832, the Secretary of the Treasury gave approval to Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler to construct standards of length and mass, and in 1836 Congress officially created the Office of Weights and Measures. Hassler chose to use the English Imperial System over the metric system; however, the International System (SI) of Units (metric system) is now widely accepted as the standard for measurement throughout most of the world.

Many Americans resist using the metric system because they think that it is more difficult. However, it is actually easier! For example, when measuring length, all you need to know is a few prefixes and that the meter is the basic unit of measurement. Everything else is based on multiples of ten. Let's take a look at how easy the metric system is!

Now for the fun part! If you run a thousand meters, you have just run one kilometer. If the road is a hundred meters long, it is one hectometer. A dime is about a millimeter thick, and your fingernail is about one centimeter wide. Isn¿t that easy!

Since the metric system is based on multiples of ten, it is easy to multiply and divide in order to convert. Look at the diagram below and you can see that there are 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 10 centimeters in a decimeter, and 10 decimeters in a meter. How many millimeters are in a decimeter? Simply, multiply 10 millimeters by 10 centimeters and you will see that there are 100 millimeters in a decimeter. How many millimeters are in a meter?

Think about the system we use everyday. There are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and 5,280 feet in a mile, and to make matters worse, you can divide an inch a lot of different ways! You can have 1/8 of an inch, 3/16 of an inch, or even 31/32 of an inch. You also have to remember to reduce fractions to the lowest common denominator; for example, 30/32 is equal to 15/16! Are you confused yet?

The metric system also has base units for other common measurements that we need to make everyday, such as weight (mass), time, volume, and temperature. Once you know these base units, the rest is the same! See how easy the metric system is! Be the first in your class to learn the metric system and make life easier!