You have a really exciting opportunity in an upcoming lesson synthesis I want to alert you to in case you hadn’t seen it already.
In Solar System, we ask students if this number is written in scientific notation.
Some students will say no. Others will say yes.
You now have the opportunity to celebrate and develop all of those ideas and to reinforce the idea that much of mathematics wasn’t written in the stars or passed down to us from omniscient alien beings. Rather, it was agreed on by people.
Scientific communities here talk about big and small numbers in a very particular way—a number between 1 and 10—not including 10—followed by a power of 10. But a different community might have decided to include 10 as a valid scientific number.
I hope your students understand that, yes, we should learn how to communicate with the mathematical world as they found it, the one created by grown-ups. But through your work on this lesson synthesis, I hope your students also realize that they can create those mathematical worlds themselves.
Dan & the Desmos Classroom Team
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Great advice from other teachers.
Chicago, IL
Go slowly. Reteach using more straight forward number lines (maybe 10^2). Suggest that students have a white board (or paper) to help them figure out the number lines.
Springfield, MO
You may need to add your own definition of scientific notation or do a Frayer Model on it.
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