In this lesson, students are introduced to logarithms as a way to express the exponent of an expression written with a certain base and having a certain value. For example, can be used to express the solution to the equation .

Students examine the patterns in a base-10 logarithm table to make sense of the values it contains. Then, they practice using the pattern they notice to find integer values of base-10 logarithms. Finally, students are introduced to a new way to rewrite equations. can be rewritten as .

When students examine the logarithm table for patterns, they make use of the structure of logarithms to articulate what they notice precisely (MP7, MP6).

Note that in this lesson, students are learning to make sense of logarithms, so use of technology to evaluate logarithms is not recommended. In later lessons, students will have opportunities to use a calculator to find log values.