A BUSHEL AND A PECK: HOW DO YOU MEASURE UP?

A tape measure measures inches, feet and yards.

This graduated cylinder measures fluids in both ounces and millileters.

A compass measures degrees useful in finding directions.

Do you know how many feet are in a mile or how many inches make up a meter?

Southeast Missouri State University math professor John Young readily could answer those questions. He teaches measurements as part of a class on mathematics for elementary teachers.

There are 5,280 feet in a mile, and 39.37 inches in a meter or just over a yard.

But how do most people measure up? Better than we might think.

Young said people are familiar with the measurements they need to know in their jobs. Methods of measurement are essential in everything from cooking to carpentry.

Every civilization has had its forms of measurement.

Young said measurement knowledge is just another part of a person's education.

The basics of measurement are taught in elementary school.

"There are seven kinds of measurements that are taught in elementary school," said Young. They are length, volume, area, weight, temperature, time and money values.

Measurements aren't something to memorize. They are tools for people to use, said Judy Gau, a fourth-grade teacher at Franklin Elementary School in Cape Girardeau.

Gau said students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades in the Cape Girardeau School District learn about measurements through science projects.

"A lot of math and science these days is taught together," she said. "We have an entire kit on just measurements."

Gau said it is important for students to know about basic measurements such as feet and inches, and the metric system.

You don't have to know about a bushel and a peck. That's something you can look up, she said.

A bushel equals four pecks or 32 quarts.

Some measurements are calculated in colorful terms, such as hogshead and jigger. A hogshead equals 63 gallons. A jigger is a measure used in mixing drinks and equates to about 2 ounces.

"Those measurements will never go away," Young said.

There is a rich history to measurements. A yard was originally the waist measurement of one of the English kings, Young said.

An acre was the amount of ground that a team of oxen could plow in one day.

"There are a lot of obscure things," he said.

When it comes to metrics, many Americans haven't a clue.

The United States is one of four nations and the only major, industrialized nation that isn't on the metric system.

The United States is on the inch-pound system. It is sometimes called the English system although it is no longer used in England.

There was a push in the United States to convert to a metric system in the 1970s, but Young said it fizzled out.

Still, American industries use metrics a lot in today's global market. Products sold overseas are measured by metrics.

Medicine is measured in metrics.

"The only place that metrics are not used is in American consumer goods," he said.

The metric system was established in France in the early 1790s. But it wasn't until 1866 that the U.S. Congress made it legal to use metric measurements.

Gau said many parents don't know the metric system because they weren't taught it. But their children are learning the metric system.

In today's information age, it is impossible to memorize everything. What is important is knowing where to find information quickly, she said.

As long as we can do that, we can all measure up.