Goal Summary:
In Module 1, students’ knowledge of operations on numbers is expanded to include operations on numbers in
integer exponents. Module 1 also builds on students’ understanding from previous grades with regard to transforming expressions. Students were introduced to exponential notation in Grade 5 as they used whole number exponents to denote powers of ten (5.NBT.A.2). In Grade 6, students expanded the use of exponents to include bases other than ten as they wrote and evaluated exponential expressions limited to whole number exponents (6.EE.A.1). Students made use of exponents again in Grade 7 as they learned formulas for the area of a circle (7.G.B.4) and volume (7.G.B.6).
In this module, students build upon their foundation with exponents as they make conjectures about how zero and negative exponents of a number should be defined and prove the properties of integer exponents (8.EE.A.1). These properties are codified into three laws of exponents. They make sense out of very large and very small numbers, using the number line model to guide their understanding of the relationship of those numbers to each other (8.EE.A.3).
Having established the properties of integer exponents, students learn to express the magnitude of a positive
number through the use of scientific notation and to compare the relative size of two numbers written in scientific notation (8.EE.A.3). Students explore the use of scientific notation and choose appropriately sized units as they represent, compare, and make calculations with very large quantities (e.g., the U.S. national debt, the number of stars in the universe, and the mass of planets) and very small quantities, such as the mass of subatomic particles (8.EE.A.4).
The Mid-Module Assessment follows Topic A. The End-of-Module Assessment follows Topic B.
Content Goals:
Click to enter your content goals. These comprise the raw information that students should know at the end of the unit.
