In actuality, the students that seem to struggle on this the most are students that already struggle with basic Number Sense (and the understanding of a numbers value in general). Therefore, the fact that this is part of our huge Number Sense Unit (comprised of Perfect Squares, Square Roots, Converting Fractions, Decimals and Percents, Comparing and Ordering, Powers of Ten and Scientific Notation)....doesn't make it any easier.
Each year I have started this part of the unit with some crazy big/and crazy small statistics that seem very difficult to read. For instance, diameter of a grain of sand, circumference in inches of the world, number of people in the world, diameter of an electron, etc. This allows students to see why we use scientific notation!
However, this year I decided to try several new activities when approaching Scientific Notation.
I started by giving out a series of numbers written in scientific notation (both positive and negative exponents). Students worked in groups and had to cut out the correct number of x10 or x1/10 that the exponent said. This seemed to make sense to them very quickly as a positive exponent like 10^3 they knew was 10 x 10 x 10. Underneath each time they multiplied they had to show the change in the number. I think this was truly the first time that I felt like students could actually see the number getting bigger and smaller (and actually place the decimal in the correct location).
Of course, it seems that I have not taken any photos of what the students end up writing.... however, this is the general idea of what my students ended up figuring out.
I think this was a great way to start scientific notation. It truly enabled students to see the growth and decrease of the number depending on the exponent (and most importantly the change in the decimal place, and how that greatly affects our number!).
As another supportive activity to this part of our unit we played Scientific Notations Dominoes this was taken from Durham County Public Schools. My students really enjoyed this activity and it really allowed students to work together to get rid of their dominoes. I did have students pass out all the cards first and place them facing up. When a card was played all students had to use their whiteboards to determine what the next card should be, this allowed students to work together.
For a challenge to see the students that truly understood value of numbers. I gave each number a card and had them convert their number to standard form, they ordered themselves as a table group, then two table groups and then a silent challenge: the whole class! I got this ideas from from a blog that I absolutely love mathequalslove, from one of her recent posts on scientific notation. This activity was truly a challenge, however, I scaffold it a bit by working in small groups and moving to larger groups. In addition, I also had students convert their numbers to standard notation first!
This year, I did not have a chance to do a matching activity with scientific notation (which I usually do). I wonder if my matching (Tarsia-like puzzle) would have been a good addition still.
What have you done to help students really wrap their head around Scientific Notation?
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