February 25: Operations with Scientific Notation

Today was a short day because of Career Day, so we quickly went over how to multiply and divide numbers in Scientific Notation.

1.  Rule for Multiplying:

(c × 10^a) × (d × 10^b)  = (c × d) × 10^a+b

Multiply the factors and the ADD THE EXPONENTS 

2.  Rule for Dividing:

(c × 10^a) ÷ (d × 10^b) = (c ÷ d) × 10^a-b

Divide the factors and then SUBTRACT THE EXPONENTS

Remember we have our Unit 6 test THIS FRIDAY!


Click here for today's homework

February 24: Scientific Notation 2

Today we had a special guest at school and during 3rd period, the entire 8th grade watched Rachel Atkins from Living Voices perform Through the Eyes of a Friend.  Because of this, 3rd Period classes missed the lesson, and only 1st and 4th periods did the activity and assignment.  If you are in 3rd period, you DO NOT need to complete this activity, though you can for extra credit!

Remember: UNIT 6 TEST THIS FRIDAY!

Topics that will be on the test:

• Scatterplots
• Association
• Outliers, 
• Clusters, 
• Strength of Association
• Strong
• Weak
• None
• Line of Best Fit
• Categorical Frequency Tables
• Properties of Exponents
• Multiplying Power (Add the Exponents!)
• Dividing Powers (Subtract the Exponents!)
• Powers to a Power (Multiply the Exponents!)
• Zero Exponents (Solution is ALWAYS 1)
• Negative Exponents (Take the Reciprocal- Divide by the base)
• Scientific Notation to Standard Form
• Standard Form to Scientific Notation
• Multiplying and Dividing number in Scientific Notation

Click here for the homework. 

February 23: Scientific Notation

Today we started the final segment in this unit: Scientific Notation.  Scientific Notation is another way to represent REALLY BIG or really small numbers, like the numbers that are typically seen in science.

For example, the distance from Earth to the Sun is 

92,960,000 miles.

In Scientific Notation, this number is written as    9.296 x 10⁷

Scientific Notation gives us a way to compare magnitude of very large or very small numbers.  We found that it was easier to understand Scientific Notation when we actually did a few examples.  The more we tried to explain the concept, the more confusing it got! So here are the notes we took in class- we did several examples going both from Standard Form to Scientific Notation, and then Scientific Notation to Standard Form.  

Click here to download today's homework.