USA TODAY® Activity, Algebra 1, South Dakota Edition, Mathematics, Glencoe

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Teacher Notes

Take a Flight

Teacher Notes:

As an extension, have students find other airline data, such as busiest airports in the world. Have them prepare tables or graphs of the data.
Be sure students realize that the data in the table is in thousands, for example, 105,434 is actually 105,434 • 1000.

Procedure for the Activity

Answers:

Steps 1–2

Airline	Number of Passengers (thousands)	Standard Notation	Scientific Notation
Delta	105,434	105,434,000	1.05434 ´ 108
United	86,472	86,472,000	8.6472 ´ 107
American	84,637	84,637,000	8.4637 ´ 107
Southwest	65,288	65,288,000	6.5288 ´ 107
U.S. Airways	55,812	55,812,000	5.5812 ´ 107
Northwest	54,692	54,692,000	5.4692 ´ 107
Continental	43,880	43,880,000	4.388 ´ 107
Trans World	25,790	25,790,000	2.579 ´ 107
America West	18,686	18,686,000	1.8686 ´ 107
Alaska	13,604	13,604,000	1.3604 ´ 107
American Eagle	11,449	11,449,000	1.1449 ´ 107
Continental Express	6664	6,664,000	6.664 ´ 106
AirTran	6458	6,458,000	6.458 ´ 106
Mesaba	5453	5,453,000	5.453 ´ 106
Hawaiian	5410	5,410,000	5.41 ´ 106
Aloha	5077	5,077,000	5.077 ´ 106
American Trans Air	5022	5,022,000	5.022 ´ 106
Horizon Air	4984	4,984,000	4.984 ´ 106
Atlantic Southeast	4584	4,584,000	4.584 ´ 106
Air Wisconsin	3373	3,373,000	3.373 ´ 106
Spirit Air	2417	2,417,000	2.417 ´ 106
Trans States	2384	2,384,000	2.384 ´ 106
Midwest Express	2192	2,192,000	2.192 ´ 106
Frontier	2176	2,176,000	2.176 ´ 106
Midway	2003	2,003,000	2.003 ´ 106

Source: The World Almanac

Step 3 about 53 times as many

Step 4 Sample answer: Delta and Hawaiian

Step 5 Sample answer: Continental Express + AirTran » Alaska

Step 6 623,941,000; To use scientific notation, you could add the values with the same power of 10. Then you could convert those sums to standard notation and add the results to get the total number of passengers.

Wrapping Up the Activity

See students’ work.