The purpose of this activity is for students to develop a sense of visual scale between powers of 10. Students should understand that multiplying by 10 corresponds to increasing the exponent by 1. 

This activity prompts students to make sense of quantities and their relationships (MP2). For example, even though the notation for does not appear to be much different than , it is 100 times larger. Small changes in the exponent can result in large changes in the value of the expression.

The purpose of this discussion is to make sure students understand that increasing the exponent of a power of 10 by 1 corresponds to multiplying by 10, and decreasing the exponent by 1 corresponds to dividing by 10.

Direct students’ attention to the reference created using Collect and Display. Ask students to share their responses to each question. Record and display the responses for all to see, referring to the image from the Task Statement when necessary. Invite students to borrow language from the display as needed. As they respond, update the reference to include additional phrases.

If time allows, consider sharing this applet that illustrates animals measured in units that vary by powers of ten: https://ggbm.at/NhpASDzz

The goal of this activity is to help students flexibly transition between different notations for powers of 10 and to introduce the property of multiplication of values with the same base. Students observe patterns in the notations and generalize that   for the values of  and  that are positive integers (MP8).

The goal of this discussion is to reinforce the exponent rule for multiplying exponential expressions with the same base. Introduce and explain the visual display prepared earlier. This display should be kept visible to students throughout the remainder of the unit. 

Continue to reinforce student understanding of this rule by writing out the expanded form of each expression and counting the total number of factors of 10 when discussing the following questions:

• “What is written as a single power of 10?” ( )
• “What is written as a single power of 10?” ( )
• “What is written as a single power of 10?” ( )
• “What are some different ways to write as the product of 2 powers of 10?” (  and  )