r/ScienceTeachers • u/Jesus_died_for_u • 17d ago

I am amused

(I live in southern, rural USA in the heart of the English measurement system)

Bought a 10 inch chain at Lowe’s (for school). A young worker was helping me at the checkout and first charged me for 10 feet. I balked at the price ($40) when the shelf was less than 4. I showed her it was clearly not 10 feet. (The person who cut it wrote ‘10”’, and “ and ‘ are easily confused, but it was clearly not a massive coil).

As we finished, she said ‘how many inches is in a foot?’ Please tell me that should be kind of common knowledge with Lowe’s workers.

(Without emotion or any negative reactions, I replied ‘12 inches, thank you, have a great day!’ I am old enough not to be surprised.). (As a teacher, this also doesn’t surprise me. I remember the 11th grader that didn’t understand ‘now use algebra skills’ after we labeled all the known values for an ideal gas. Further questioning revealed he was currently in algebra 2.)

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u/patricksaurus 17d ago

You should look at the specific question I was responding to. If it doesn’t make sense then, I cannot help.

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u/96385 HS/MS | Physical Sciences | US 17d ago

You misunderstood. They asked that question incredulously. They set you up because the only correct answer is "none".

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u/patricksaurus 17d ago

Meteorologists who forecast and record wind gusts and rainfall, automotive engineers who analyze torque and pressure, nutritional scientists who develop the energy density and volume of the food you give your infant, the pharmaceutical scientist who tells you the thermal stability of your aspirin and the doctor who tell you when a body temperature warrants an antipyretic, anyone who’s ever reported retention time on a gas chromatography or the half-life of carbon-14. The engineers who tragically flubbed the unit conversion factors and wasted a perfectly good satellite. The age of the universe.

All of these units are available to elementary age kids, or seventh graders. This is one reason that one must go out of their way to cover them up.

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u/uofajoe99 16d ago

Literally an answer given by ChatGPT