8th Grade Math Lesson

Powers of Ten: Scientific Notation & Operations

Shared by A STEM Educator

Grade 8 honorsBTC Style / Thinking Classrooms50 min

Learning Objective

Students will convert numbers between standard and scientific notation and perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with numbers in scientific notation.

Lesson Overview

Students progress from recognizing powers of ten through converting numbers to/from scientific notation, then apply all four operations with scientific notation in real-world contexts. Each task changes exactly one variable to build fluency and conceptual understanding.

Materials

Vertical whiteboards or large paper
Dry-erase markers (multiple colors)
Pencils and scratch paper

Scaffolded Task Progression

1Task 1

Write each power of ten in standard form, then write each standard form number as a power of ten.
a)

1 0^{4}

= ?b)

1 0^{- 3}

= ?c)

100, 000

1 0^{?}

0.01

1 0^{?}

2Task 2

Convert each number to scientific notation.
a)

47, 000

0.0052

300, 000, 000

(speed of light in m/s)d)

0.000000167

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