I hear a lot of instructors—particularly college professors—lamenting that American students don't have a fluency or an intuition for SI/"metric" units.
True, but fluency and intuition can't simply be willed into existence. They are only the result of continual, deliberate, repetitive practice.
Yes, SI is the "language" of science. But Spanish is the "language of Mexico," and we all know that a trip to Mexico doesn't make one a fluent Spanish speaker. Simply being exposed to a lot of something (metric units, foreign language, etc.) does not make someone proficient in it.
Now, a good way to supercharge your Spanish learning would be to visit Mexico and do Spanish classes and have a Spanish tutor and spend your free time trying to listen, speak, and read as much as possible. But the roundtrip tickets to Mexico aren't enough.
Similarly, if instructors want students to appreciate SI units, and to intuitively understand their magnitude, we must decide that is something we want to prioritize and we must practice, practice, practice.
I recently saw an amazing SI unit activity from @APchemisMe, and I'm sure that many other instructors have similarly amazing content.
But if it's a priority, it must be practiced. Over and over and over and over. It's the only way any of us have ever learned anything.
#chemed #chemteach
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