Take a Flight

Materials: calculator, four index cards

Work alone or in pairs.

The table shows the number of passengers in 1999 for the leading U.S. airlines. All numbers are given in thousands.

Airline	Number of Passengers (thousands)	Standard Notation	Scientific Notation
Delta	105,434
United	86,472
American	84,637
Southwest	65,288
U.S. Airways	55,812
Northwest	54,692
Continental	43,880
Trans World	25,790
America West	18,686
Alaska	13,604
American Eagle	11,449
Continental Express	6664
AirTran	6458
Mesaba	5453
Hawaiian	5410
Aloha	5077
American Trans Air	5022
Horizon Air	4984
Atlantic Southeast	4584
Air Wisconsin	3373
Spirit Air	2417
Trans States	2384
Midwest Express	2192
Frontier	2176
Midway	2003

Source: The World Almanac

Procedure for the Activity

Step 1 Copy or print out the table. Fill in Column 3 by writing each number of passengers in standard notation.
Step 2 Fill in Column 4 by writing each number of passengers in scientific notation.
Step 3 About how many times as many passengers were carried by Delta as by Midway?
Step 4 Find a pair of airlines such that one had about 19 times as many passengers as the other.
Step 5 Find three airlines such that the total passengers carried by two of the airlines is approximately the number of passengers carried by the third airline.
Step 6 How many total passengers were carried by all the airlines in the table? Is it possible to use the numbers in scientific notation to find the total number of passengers? Explain.

Wrapping Up the Activity

On each of two index cards, write one mathematical problem using the airline data. On each of the other two index cards, provide the solutions to each problem. Have another student or group of students solve your problems. Then give them the cards with the solutions to check their work.