3 Steps to Master any Scientific Notation Worksheet

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A Short Explanation of Operations with Scientific Notation

Scientific Notation is a way to write numbers that are really large or really small. There are two parts to a number written in Scientific Notation. The first part is called the coefficient and the second part is a power of ten. In order for a number to be correctly written in Scientific Notation, the coefficient must be between one and ten. The exponent on the power of ten tells you how many spaces to move the decimal point and which way to move the decimal point. If the exponent is positive, the decimal point moves to the right. If the exponent is negative, the exponent moves to the left. Scientific Notation is helpful for understanding things like the scale of the universe or the diameter of a cell. Scientific Notation consists of a coefficient and a power of ten.

Common Core Standard: 8.EE.A

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Here’s a brief Scientific Notation Definition

Scientific Notation is used to compose numbers that are big or small. A number in Scientific Notation has two parts. The coefficient is the base and the power of ten is also included. For a number to be accurately written in Scientific Notation, the coefficient must be somewhere in the range of one and ten. The power of ten tells you how many times to move the decimal place. If the power is positive, the exponent moves right. If the power is negative, the exponent moves left.

3 Quick Steps for using Scientific Notation Rules

Check the base of the number in Scientific Notation.
The base must be in between one and ten. If it is not, it is not in Scientific Notation.
Check to make sure the Power of Ten has a ten as the base.

Scientific Notation Practice Problems Quiz

A Short Video on our Scientific Notation Worksheet

Watch our free video on how to solve Scientific Notation. This video shows how to solve problems that are on our free Scientific Notation worksheet that you can get by submitting your email above.

Watch the free Scientific Notation video on YouTube here: Scientific Notation Worksheet Video

Video Transcript:

This video is about our introduction to scientific notation worksheet. You can get the worksheet we use in this video for free by clicking on the link in the description below.

This video is about our scientific notation worksheet that is about identifying if a numbers written in scientific notation or not. Now scientific notation has two parts. The first part about scientific notation is that it always has a base. This base is always in between the numbers 1 and 10. The second part of a number in scientific notation is that our base is being multiplied by a power of 10. The power of 10 always has a base of 10 and then an exponent that can be either positive or negative. Just to give you a quick example of a number written in scientific notation, something like this which would be 4 point 5 times 10 to the 5th power. This 4 point 5 here is our base and then this 10 to the fifth power is the power of 10. You can see that the base for point 5 is being multiplied times a power of 10.

Let’s do a couple practice problems on our intro to scientific notation worksheet. The directions say to state whether each number is written in scientific notation. You simply have to look at each of these numbers and determine if they are correctly written in scientific notation. If you look at number one, number one gives us a base of 5 and then a power of 10 that is 10 to the 6 power. Our base of 5 is in between 1 and 10 that means that this number is written in scientific notation. Number 2 gives us 5 point 0 1 0 1 times 10 to the 4th. 5 point 0 1 0 1 is in between 1 and 10 and it is and it is being multiplied times a power of ten so that means that this is also correctly written in scientific notation. Number six gives us point seven times 10 to the negative fifth. Now this point seven is less than one so if this is smaller than the number one, it’s less than one, that means that the base is not correctly written in scientific notation. This is not in scientific notation. Then the last one is number seven which is fifteen point three five times ten to the sixth. Our base here is greater than ten that means that this base is not in between one and ten therefore this number is not correctly written in scientific notation.