Basic science: understanding numbers

1.7 Scientific notation

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Activity 1.3 Trying out scientific notation

Allow about 15 minutes

This video introduces scientific notation – the way scientists write very big and very small numbers. Try to think of large or small science-related things and practise writing them in scientific notation by posting them in the forum thread for this activity.

There’s an additional challenge in this activity … how do you write the superscripts? When you compose your post, you should see a button which looks like this: X2. To make a number superscript, highlight it using your mouse and then press this button.

Try it for yourself by posting a large number using scientific notation.