1. Scientific Notation 8 th Grade Earth and Space Science Mrs. Liberatore

2. Scientific Shorthand In science some numbers are very, very large and some numbers are very, very small. Scientific notation is a convenient way to represent very large and very small numbers. Examples 

3. Basic Rules Very large numbers will have positive exponents. The exponent will be the number of decimal spaces moved to the left to make the base number between 1 and 9. Example: 5,600,000 is 5.6 X 10 6

4. Now You Try It! Write 44,000,000,000,000 in scientific notation. What is 2.98 x 10 4 in standard notation? Did you know 44,000,000,000,000 km is the distance from the Earth to its next closest star system Alpha Centauri? It would take 50,000 years to travel there – that’s far!

5. Basic Rules Very small numbers will have negative exponents. The exponent will be the number of decimal spaces moved to the right to make the base number between 1 and 9. Example: 0.0004 is 4.0 x 10 -4

6. Now You Try It! Write 0.0000000001 in scientific notation. What is 7.98 x 10 -6 in standard notation? Did you know 0.0000000001 m is the diameter of a single atom?