How much did you use Celsius in high school?
Posted by WattleWaddler2@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 70 comments
For high school chemistry and physics, did you use Celsius and Kelvin, or did you do calculations in Fahrenheit for temperature? If the former, was it weird using Celsius just for science?
Multidream@reddit
I mean once you get to Highschool you switch to celsius for any serious work and that’s it. Weather continues to be reported in Fahrenheit, but the mental approximate conversion is easy enough, I figure everyone just kinda feels it out.
CommanderKrieger@reddit
We touched on it a little. Got the basics down, like what the freezing and boiling temp of water is. Beyond that, unless an assignment specifically asked for an answer in Celsius, we didn’t use it. Just Fahrenheit.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
A good reminder of why the south is where it is
CommanderKrieger@reddit
And what exactly do you mean by that?
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
That the skirts is backwards AF and is dragging the country down because the confederacy never really does. Isn’t that obvious?
CommanderKrieger@reddit
The skirts? Who calls anything that, much more so saying it’s backwards in comparison to the entire nation when it’s no small secret that Idaho has a serious neo-nazi problem.
Saying the entire south east is dragging the entire country down is a wild ass statement when Texas and Florida are two of the largest revenue generators for the nation.
The confederacy hasn’t existed since 1865, that was 161 years ago. Get your head out of the past. “…the confederacy never really does.” What? The confederacy never really does what? You forgot to finish your statement.
If your whole gripe is that the USA, which uses Fahrenheit in daily use outside of scientific matters, doesn’t use Celsius for absolutely everything, then your entire complaint boils down to “America bad” and you need to seriously reevaluate what you consider bad. There are much worse things in the world than the USA not using Celsius to tell the temperature of the air outside, and singling out the south-east is rather childish in your understanding how backwards the entire country has been at any given point in history.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
lol. Sensitive much? It autocorrected to skirts but seeing how triggered you’re inbred brain is, I’ll use it now. Why are you texting so much anyway? Don’t you have some black people to persecute not that the confederate…Supreme Court ok’d getting back to your racist agenda.
Oh and California contributes almost as much as Texas and Florida combined and that will drop with all that believed southern facsism.
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CommanderKrieger@reddit
I’m aware there’s shitty people in the south east, but there’s also a whole lot more good people that don’t deserve the hate. There’s shitty people across the entire nation. There’s shitty people across the whole world. I’m sure you’ve got some shitty aspects of yourself, most relevant right now being your apparent distaste for people from the south east which can only be attributed to being a bigot and chauvinist.
Believe it or not, unlike what plenty of people in the rest of the nation believes, a lot of folks in the south are not racist, and couldn’t care less about who our neighbors are. Whites, blacks, browns, purples, yellows, polka-dots and everything in between work together in jobs of all kinds, all across the south east, just looking for a paycheck at the end of the day. We’re all living in the same shitty economy with the same shitty bosses all the way up the chain in the government who no doubt would rather see us all as slaves, regardless of skin color if it means they get more money in their pockets.
Educate yourself better and try to be more open minded to the actually good people of the nation, and be aware that they may come from unexpected places. The state you were born in does not by default make you better or worse than anyone. It is the nature of your character and how you carry yourself through life that does. Be the best you can be, and live your life to your fullest capability in pursuit of happiness.
I’ve got things to do now, like taking my parents to dinner for Mother’s Day, so I bid you farewell. We’re going to an Italian joint called Amalfi’s in Statesville. If you’re ever in the area, stop by. It’s really good.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
I read it and good job ignoring the fact black people in you’re state will have no representation.
CommanderKrieger@reddit
your*
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
I didn’t read this.
CommanderKrieger@reddit
I’m glad I could live rent free in your head enough for you to still feel like replying. Hope your evening is going wonderfully though.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
What?
EpsilonAmber@reddit
Chemistry, a lot. outside of chemistry? basically never.
chesbay7@reddit
Never. Literally, never.
Bulky_Luck5105@reddit
Not at all.
glemits@reddit
Never used Fahrenheit in any science class, including middle school, which was in the Seventies.
Atlas7993@reddit
All my sciences classes except geology used Celsius. Idk why not geology. The teacher also taught Bio, and she used Celsius there.
CaptainAwesome06@reddit
We worked quite a fair bit in Celsius and metric. Enough to where, if all Americans had the same experience as me, no American should be confused by it. However, being able to visualize it for day to day tasks is different. For example, I can work in metric units all day but I don't know how many kilograms I weigh. For fun, I guessed and checked. I was off by a factor of 2.
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
In chemistry and physics, yes. If you end up in an engineering program at college, you almost don’t touch Fahrenheit (I graduated from one).
CaptainAwesome06@reddit
At my engineering school, we worked in IP almost as much as metric. So we saw plenty of Fahrenheit. I guess YMMV.
cheekmo_52@reddit
I didn’t. The only time it has ever come up, for me, is when I traveled to Europe.
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
I was in an aerospace engineering program and we almost literally never did anything - for 4 years - in general OR major-specific courses in Imperial units. This was in the late 1990s.
cheekmo_52@reddit
that may be, but OP’s question pertained to high school chem and physics, not graduate level university degrees. Were you an aerospace engineer in high school?
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
I learned Celsius in high school, too…
cheekmo_52@reddit
I’m Gen X. (So younger than a boomer.) I took AP physics and chemistry in high school, but we used Fahrenheit for temperature.
bearsnchairs@reddit
How old are you?
cheekmo_52@reddit
I’m Gen X (so younger than a boomer…My mom is a boomer.) I took AP Chemistry and Physics in High School. When temperature came up, we used fahrenheit. This would’ve been in the mid ‘80’s.
bearsnchairs@reddit
That makes sense. I remember learning some metric in elementary during the 90s, but when I took AP chem and physics in the 00s it was all SI units, with some odd things thrown in to practice conversions.
5littlemonkey@reddit
I would believe it for someone boomer or older.
Yeahboyeah@reddit
Yep.
5littlemonkey@reddit
I think my power plants class was the only time it came up routinely (as long as we're counting Rankine) because so many of them are super old.
0utlaw-t0rn@reddit
Science classes are almost exclusively in SI units. Even in college.
The “real world” of engineering is mostly English units (in the US). There is so much “inertia” to change over and legacy stuff out there that it just has happened, and likely won’t.
Khpatton@reddit
For science classes at the high school level and above, always Celsius (or Kelvin, depending on the subject). I teach 5th grade (age 10-11) math and that’s when my state curriculum starts metric units and unit conversions.
I’m proficient with the metric system, but because I don’t use it in daily life, I don’t have the intuitive sense for it that I have for Fahrenheit and other US customary units. I can easily do the conversion from 27C to 80F, but if you just told me it was 27C out, I wouldn’t know whether to bring a jacket without doing the math. I adapt quickly when I’m traveling, but it doesn’t stick for long.
Thhe_Shakes@reddit
IIRC we used both pretty interchangeably. About 50/50. Some problems even had a mix of metric and American units that we'd have to convert. Really taught you to read carefully instead of just immediately starting to plug in numbers. I remember junior year physics being the first time I ever heard of the "slug" as a unit (American unit of mass).
Its super interesting to me that Americans weight themselves using a unit of Force, and most Europeans do so with a unit of Mass.
MrLongWalk@reddit
Daily
ColumbiaWahoo@reddit
Quite a bit in Chemistry/Physics (actually Kelvin but it’s just Celsius with an offset)
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
We used celsius in chemistry. I never took physics. It wasn't weird, it just felt like a science thing.
crazycatlady331@reddit
Xennial.
I don't remember using it at all but then again I took the bare minimum in science (only what was required to graduate) as it's not a strong suit for me.
Steamsagoodham@reddit
Earlier on in high school we probably used Celsius a bit more, but once we got closer to college level chemistry and physics where we had to do more calculations we switched to kelvin
TheOwlMarble@reddit
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
Also, and this is a hill I’m going to die on, Fahrenheit is a more appropriate measurement for ambient temperature. It’s effectively base 100 for what humans tolerate as comfortable.
FreeStateOfPortland@reddit
For chemistry and physics, we only used metric measurements.
riarws@reddit
I teach high school science. The only time we ever use Fahrenheit in class is for lessons on something like climate change, where we might look at historical weather trends that were originally reported in Fahrenheit. We would convert it to Celsius before doing anything with the data, though.
Stressed_C@reddit
Just during the math conversions unit for a month or two in middle school
Soft_Race9190@reddit
Mchemistry and physics were all in metric. But that’s all, just for science classes. I’m actually more familiar with Celsius from casual conversations with coworkers in India.
Yeahboyeah@reddit
We tried in Physics and Chemistry in the mid 70s. But, you're always converting it back in your head. Ronnie Reagan couldn't deal with it later so that was that. By now, it would have been accepted. Luckily the U.S., Myanmar and Liberia are leaders in old world thinking.
TeamTurnus@reddit
Used both for science classes probably tended more towards Celsius. Continued to do that for my engineering classes as its helpful to know both
Not super weird, its a simple linear conversion after all.
Quenzayne@reddit
Never took chemistry or physics. Didn’t use Celsius until I moved abroad. Took about 6 months to get used to it.
Redbubble89@reddit
Science uses Celsius, meters, Newtons, grams, etc.
Ok_Orchid1004@reddit
Not at all. Only Fahrenheit. We learned about celsius, that’s about it. But I’m almost 70 and if you tell me it’s 30°C outside I have no clue what that means. I only know it’s pretty warm.
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
If you take chemistry, you absolutely learn it.
TManaF2@reddit
You learn it, but you don't necessarily experience it. I can estimate distance in meters, but not as easily as in feet and inches. I can translate between degrees Fahrenheit, degrees Celsius, and degrees Kelvin - but other than 37C being body temperature and 0C being the freezing point of water, I need to translate to Fahrenheit to determine if I need a sweater, coat, or something else outside
Educational-Big-6609@reddit
Well, sure, but that’s because you live in the USA. The question was in a high-school context (implying learning) and you definitely learn metric in chemistry and physics. There’s no way you got out of school not knowing how to do m/sec calculations or that water freezes at 0C and boils at 100C…and your thermometers had C on them.
Equivalent_Working73@reddit
Everyday, since I went to school in Europe.
But quite frankly, Fahrenheit changed my life, having a scale that makes actual sense between 0 and 100 is just too boring.
Traditional_Entry183@reddit
We were told what the conversations were and what that meant, but largely used Fahrenheit still.
Classic-Push1323@reddit
High school can be a mixed bag because different states have different standards. If you’re taking a science class in college or pursue graduate education, you’re going to be using metric units. A lot of calculations that are very common in chemistry rely on metric units and I’ve never seen an English conversion for something like PV=nRT.
We exclusively use metric units in most scientific research but applied sciences (like forestry) tend to have a mix. You might do your research with metric units but present result in English units if you have shareholders from the business community, the general public, local/state/federal government, etc.
InvestigatorJaded261@reddit
We used only Celsius in Science classes. We did not really use temperature at all in other subjects.
Celsius is still very unintuitive for me though. I have a hard time telling what nice weather actually is when I encounter it in Canada or Europe.
GSilky@reddit
Farenheit, Kelvin if that was part of the lesson. Celcius is like American stubbornness with the imperial system for the rest of the world. 0 is not that cold.
HotButteredPoptart@reddit
Not at all. Now however, I also don't use it.
TCFNationalBank@reddit
We used it in those science classes but it didn't have any intrinsic meaning to me, same sort of way I didn't know what a Joule of energy "feels like"
_Smedette_@reddit
Metric was taught and Celsius was used in all my science classes. If you study certain sciences in college, you will use it almost exclusively and it’s the default for a lot of professions in the sciences.
Outside of that, there isn’t a lot of practical use for it, so many people will forget if it’s not applicable to them in a professional capacity.
qu33nof5pad35@reddit
Never heard Celsius
dangleicious13@reddit
Pretty much never from what I remember. Used Kelvin way more than Celsius.
Equivalent_Party706@reddit
We used basically just Celsius. I think there may have been math word problems that used Fahrenheit, but that's it.
Fahrenheit remained the only system used for day-to-day matters. If someone said it was thirty degrees out, that meant it was freezing.
rnmissionrun@reddit
Not at all.
I remember being taught the metric system in school and being told that we were all going to be switching over to it at some point. Obviously that never happened. Not sure what happened with that.
I don't remember actually using it except when we were actively learning it.
Low_Plastic363@reddit
I only remember using Kelvin in chemistry and physics, but perhaps not in high school
GandalfTheShmexy@reddit
In physics and chemistry either Celsius or Kelvin was used depending on context. Fahrenheit was and is the colloquial unit of temperature.
akaispirit@reddit
I was on this team for some school competition and part of it involved a quiz on animal temperatures. All the options were in Celsius but everyone only knew the answers in Fahrenheit. The organizers had to come in and do a quick lesson on converting F to C.