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This is for pre-algebra and algebra 1. Once students have learned scientific notation and operations with scientific notation, these are some real-life word problems for them to work on so that they understand how much easier it is to solve real-world messy problems using scientific notation rather than standard notation.
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Scientific Notation Word Problems
1. The nearest star to us, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 light years away. A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles. (This is why we use light years as a measurement of distance, guys. Space is big.) How far away is Alpha Centauri in miles? Express in scientific notation.
2. Americans eat an average of 1,200,000,000 pounds of hamburger each year. Assuming that each hamburger is a quarter-pounder, how many hamburgers do Americans eat each year? Express your answer in scientific notation.
3. Red blood cells are only 4.0×10−5of an inch wide. In the human body, there are about 2.5×1013 blood cells in the human body. If they were lined up end to end, for how many feet would our blood cells line up?
4. If the Earth is 4.54 billion years old and you believe in reincarnation, and the average life span is 70 years old, how many lives have you lived? Express your answer in both standard and scientific notation.
5. The average number of words spoken by men each day is 10,000 words and the average number of words spoken by women each day is 25,000 words. If the population of the Earth is 6 billion people and approximately half are men and half are women, each day how many more words are spoken by women?
6. Make up your own scientific notation word problem using some statistic you find through research.
