Google Earth and Scientific Notation

by: Algebra Funsheets - December 12th, 2011   Add Comment

Another project by realworldmath.org. Real World Math projects integrate Google Earth with various math topics, this one on Scientific Notation. Below is a very brief excerpt from their site, but you need to visit the site itself for the full project:

Scientific Notation – Real World Math

Objectives
•Measure distance between two points
•Write large numbers in standard form to 3 significant digits
•Express large numbers in Scientific Notation

Lesson Description
This is an introductory lesson to teach students how to write large numbers in scientific notation. The values used are found by measuring the centimeter distance between pairs of cities from around the world using Google Earth’s ruler tool.

All the World’s Water – Volume of a Sphere Project

by: Algebra Funsheets - November 30th, 2011   Add Comment


This picture inspires a wonderful volume project, and can easily have scientific notation and proportions integrated into the project as well.
(1) Have students calculate the volume of the Earth.
(2) Research the amount of water that’s on the Earth (about 326 million trillion gallons according to science.howstuffworks.com)
(3) Have students calculate what size sphere would hold that volume of water
(4) Either with a computer drawing program or just on a piece of paper, have students use proportions to show the size of the Earth compared to the sphere that would hold the world’s water.

** The same thing can be done with air (atmosphere), though I couldn’t find a specific number as to the exact volume of air. But considering the atmosphere extends (very roughly) out to about 300 km (there’s more atmosphere, I’m sure, but the density of the molecules would be very negligible), simply take the radius of the Earth (6,378.1 km) to figure out the volume of the Earth, then draw another sphere around the Earth that has a radius of 6,678.1 (radius of Earth + 300) and calculate the volume of that sphere, and the difference would be the volume of the atmosphere … albeit a very rough estimation. Students shouldn’t be told this, of course!

Here’s a site with more information about the Amount of Water in/on/above the Earth.

Scientific Notation and Planets Activity

by: Algebra Funsheets - November 15th, 2011   1 Comment

solarsystem
This interactive solar system map would make a great scientific notation activity:

Solar System Scope

Using the interactive distance tool on the site, have students calculate the number of miles or kilometers from the planets to the sun, or the distance from the sun and other planets to the earth.

To incorporate scientific notation operations, with a pre-made student guide, students could be directed to find the difference between two distances, etc.

The distances are given in AU, so students will have to convert rates. And, to integrate scientific notation into the activity, just have them give answers rounded to the first three or four significant digits and then write in scientific notation.

1 Astronomical Unit = 92,955,887.6 miles
1 Astronomical Unit = 149,598,000 kilometers

Click the up arrow on the top right corner to get rid of all the annoying ads. And have students mute the sound as 30 computers playing the background sounds in one room will get annoying very quickly.

Scientific Notation Videos and/or Project

by: Algebra Funsheets - October 27th, 2011   Add Comment

PowersOf10
Scientific notation has always been one of the low points in the curriculum for me – I find it dull. After all, you’re basically just counting decimal places. But then one year I started showing things that were actually 10^8 kilometers or as tiny as 10^-5 mm. Here’s my final collection so far:

On a Pin
Cell Size and Scale
Star Size Comparison
Powers of 10

One year, I found some pictures of molecules that spelled out IBM. I think they even made a microscopic violin that actually played music (well, noise – we listened to the little soundtrack that accompanied it). But I can’t seem to find them anymore…

I don’t recommend going through all the links for 30 minutes straight in one class period. But these could be easily be integrated into your lesson. The powers of 10 video is always a good finale to the scientific notation unit.

An option is to scrap the videos (until maybe after the projects are done) and turn this into a project. Have students find 10 things that are sized in the negative exponent range, and 10 things in the positive exponent range, then they must arrange their pictures on a poster board from least to greatest, labeled in both scientific and standard notation of course. (You’ll have to be more specific or they’ll just find planets and cells around the same size).  Or they could power point their presentation and convert it into a video…

Another thing I do to introduce students to small and big numbers (well, big numbers really) is have the students figure out how long it takes for a million seconds to go by, a billion seconds and finally a trillion seconds. (12 days, 32 years, 32,000 years). This lets them at least appreciate the difference a couple of zeroes make. (By the way, you’d think I’d get used it it, but it always amazes me how many students actually attempt this problem by repeatedly adding 60!)