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14.2

Activity

Standards Alignment

Building On

Addressing

Instructional Routines

None

Materials

None

Activity Narrative

In this activity, students use scientific notation as a tool to understand the relative scale of different units (MP2). They practice modeling skills by identifying essential elements of the problems and gathering relevant information before computing (MP4).

Launch

Arrange students in groups of 2. Instruct students to first read through the problems and decide on what information they need to solve each problem. Give students an opportunity to ask for the information they need, and record relevant information for all students to see. Record information only when students have asked for it. Possible information students will ask for include:

Mai’s dad’s computer holds 500 gigabytes of storage space.
A kilobyte is 1,000 bytes, a megabyte is 1,000,000 bytes, and a gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes.
A 1-page document is approximately 1.5 kilobytes.
A full-length, high-definition film is around 8 gigabytes and runs 2 hours.
A person sleeps about 8 hours in a night.

Give students 15–20 minutes of work time, and follow that with a brief whole-class discussion.

Representation: Access for Perception. Ask students to read each problem statement aloud to their partner. Students who both listen to and read the information will benefit from extra processing time.
Supports accessibility for: Language, Attention

Activity

None

For each question, think about what information you would need to figure out an answer. Your teacher may provide some of the information you ask for. Write your answers using scientific notation.

Mai found a 1980’s computer magazine with an advertisement for a machine with hundreds of kilobytes of storage! Mai was curious and asked, “How many kilobytes would my dad’s new computer hold?”
The old magazine showed another ad for a 750-kilobyte floppy disk, a device used in the past to store data. How many gigabytes is this?
Mai is writing a 1-page essay for school on her computer. Estimate how many 1-page essays it would take for Mai to fill up a floppy disk. Explain or show your reasoning.
Mai likes to go to the movies with her friends and knows that a high-definition film takes up a lot of storage space on a computer. Estimate how many floppy disks it would take to store a high-definition movie. Explain or show your reasoning.
How many seconds of a high-definition movie would one floppy disk be able to hold?
If you fall asleep watching a movie streaming service, and it streams movies all night while you sleep, how many floppy disks of information would that be?

Student Response

to access Student Response.

Building on Student Thinking

Activity Synthesis

The purpose of this discussion is to reflect on how scientific notation can help make sense of real-world situations. Ask students:

“What was surprising or interesting when comparing different digital media and hardware?”
“How did scientific notation help to make these comparisons?”

Speaking: MLR8 Discussion Supports. As students explain what they noticed about the differences in digital media and hardware, press for details in students’ ideas by requesting that students challenge an idea, elaborate on an idea, or make explicit their process for calculating or comparing the values. Revoice student ideas to model mathematical language use in order to clarify, apply appropriate language, and involve more students. This will help students produce and make sense of the language needed to communicate their own ideas.
Design Principle(s): Support Sense-Making; Optimize Output (for explanation)

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Lesson 14

Is a Smartphone Smart Enough to Go to the Moon?

Activity

Instructional Routines

Materials

To Copy (from Blackline Masters)

Activity Narrative

Launch

Activity

Student Response

Building on Student Thinking

Activity Synthesis

Activity

Standards Alignment

Building On

Addressing

8.EE.A.3

Instructional Routines

Materials

Activity Narrative

Launch

Activity

Student Response

Building on Student Thinking

Activity Synthesis

Standards Alignment

Building On

Addressing

8.EE.A.3

8.EE.A.4

Building Toward

8.EE.A.4

Building Toward