Teachers...How can I show a classroom of 6th graders what 4.5 billion of something looks like?

Question

I'm teaching a chapter on Geologic Time. Thanks!

Answer 1

Tell them to imagine how much an x box or playstation costs. Then divide the price by 4.5 billion and tell them how many things they could buy with that amount.

Answer 2

I like the answer above--the goal is to make it relevant to something they can get their heads around.

The coolest example I've seen of something like this was in an Astronomy class. The professor had the lecture hall represent the size of the universe. On that scale, Earth ended up being too small to see on the tip of our pencil. It really gave a sense of relative size.

So maybe you could translate number into spatial representation? Like, if you took 4.5 billion steps, you'd circle the globe x times?

Another good way I've seen really big numbers get represented is through counting. There was something about how if you had $10 million, and counted $1 every second, it would take you X years to count it all--it was something unbelievable. So that would be another way--maybe say if every student in the class counted $1 every second, then it would take them X years to get to $4.5 billion.

What a fun question! I'm sure you'll come up with something they'll really connect to.

Answer 3

Have them all work for a week collecting something small, such as bottle caps or those little tags on loaves of bread or maybe even pennies - something they can get a lot of in a week. At the end of the week count them all and then talk about how many more they would need to have 4.5 billion and how much space they would take up if there were 4.5 billion, how much space they take up if they were laid out end to end and how much space they would need to lay out 4.5 billion end to end, etc.

Answer 4

Relate Geologic time to 24 hours to give them and idea.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day, so 52,083 years every second.

So, Midnight is the creation of the earth. So humans have been around for (roughly) four seconds.

I think that's drastic enough to make an impression.

Answer 5

I'm not a teacher..... but maybe you could type up a whole bunch of periods or commas or something, count how many there are on one page and print however many pages ir takes to get 4.5 billion. That would be alot of computer paper but 4.5 billion is alot of something.

Answer 6

Make it something fun and rewarding. Collect as many pennies as possible, have the children come up with a goal amount and try to go over it. Then donate the money to a charity.

Answer 7

I suggest that you get a sweet manufacturer involved, they can then supply the sweets for consumption by the kids, in return for a mention on the hospital hall of fame.