1. Aim: How is Scientific notation used?
Do Now:
- In your notebooks, describe what scientific notation does to the numbers you are using. Look at the examples below to help you.
1,000,000,000 = 1.0 x 10 9
= 3.45 x 10 -4
Some number
Scientific Notation

2. Based on our Do Now answers, why would a scientist use scientific notation instead of writing out the entire number?
Scientific notation writes numbers in a short-hand form.
This form makes really large or really small numbers easier to read and write.
1,000,000,000 = 1.0 x 10 9
original number
New
number
Power of…

3. Where did the decimal start originally?
Rules for writing in Scientific Notation
(follow example on board as we go through the rules)
Step 1: Draw in the decimal point to make a number between 1 and 10.
Step 2: Count the number of places you moved the decimal to get the number between 1 and 10.
Step 3: Write the new number as a product between 1 and 10 (dropping zeroes at the end), followed by “x 10”, to the power of the number of spaces the decimal moved.
Where did the decimal start originally?
If there is no original decimal, where does it belong?

4. Closure:
Take a “Writing numbers in Scientific Notation” worksheet from the back.
Working with the person sitting next to you, work on the practice problems on the front of the worksheet.

5. 4.6x ) 4.605X106 3) 3.3X104
4) 9.632X103 5) 8.0X ) 3.0X10-2
7) 1.458X106 8)1.4X ) 5.7X103
10) 6.57x101 11) 5.45x )2.245x107
13) 8.03x ) 6.783x102 15) 3.47x106
16) 1.2x ) 5.7x ) 3.798
19) ) )
22) ) ) .14
25) ) )