Reply To: 1-1 – Magnitude of Number – Discussion

[Terry Hill]

As a high school math teacher, I can certainly see the need to get students to understand magnitude. Most of my students throw around words like millionaire and millions of dollars like they are talking about twenty dollars. I believe that is because I do not think they understand how big a million is, much less a trillion. I have in the past gotten students to google the one millionth digit of pi, and it doesn’t take long before they get tired of scrolling. But even then I wonder if they truly make the connection to the actual magnitude.

[Terry Hill]

As a high school math teacher, I can certainly see the need to get students to understand magnitude. Most of my students throw around words like millionaire and millions of dollars like they are talking about twenty dollars. I believe that is because I do not think they understand how big a million is, much less a trillion. I have in the past gotten students to google the one millionth digit of pi, and it doesn’t take long before they get tired of scrolling. But even then I wonder if they truly make the connection to the actual magnitude.