1. A man in the USA has sued Bank of America for $1 784 billion trillion. How much is that?

2. How do you write 1 784 billion trillion in standard form? Can you say this number using the word ‘yotta’? What does this mean? The sun has the power of a yotta microwave ovens

3. These parts of the website tell a story of $1 784 billion trillion. Make up your own story to explain how much money $1 784 billion trillion really is. Write your numbers in standard form or use prefixes like ‘yotta’ to define them.

4. Up2d8 maths Yotta Lotta Money Teacher Notes

5. Yotta Lotta Money Introduction: An American recently sued Bank of America in Manhattan’s federal court for $1,784,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or $1 784 billion trillion. This incomprehensibly large amount of money would make Dalton Chiscolm, the bank customer, the world’s first billion-trillionaire if the case is successful. This resource uses the idea of a huge amount of money to explore large numbers and standard form. Content objectives: This context provides the opportunity for teachers and students to explore a number of objectives. Some that may be addressed are: solve numerical problems involving multiplication and division with numbers of any size, using a calculator efficiently and appropriately solve problems that involve calculating with powers, roots and numbers expressed in standard form identify the mathematical features of a context or problem; try out and compare mathematical representations; select appropriate procedures and tools, including ICT. Process objectives: These will depend on the amount of freedom you allow your class with the activity. It might be worth considering how you’re going to deliver the activity and highlighting the processes that this will allow on the diagram below:

6. Activity: The activity looks at large numbers and encourages students to use standard form as a tool to express large numbers. Students have an opportunity to explore prefixes such as mega, giga and yotta and understand their precise mathematical meaning. The activity also invites students to put a large number into context using either standard form or number prefixes. The original news report can be viewed on the BBCnews report website. Differentiation: You may decide to change the level of challenge for your group. To make the task easier you could consider: expressing the numbers in the ‘Bill Gates story’ into standard form giving students some facts involving large numbers e.g. ‘As of 5 November 2009, the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6.795 billion’ (Wikipedia) or ‘There are 86 400 seconds in a day’ as building blocks for their story. To make the task more complex, you could consider: asking students to explain how they would spend their money working out the interest on this amount of money invested over a year (simple or compound?). This resource is designed to be adapted to your requirements. Outcomes: You may want to consider what the outcome of the task will be and share this with students according to their ability. This task lends itself to a poster in which students are encouraged to briefly tell their story. Working in groups: This activity lends itself to paired or small group work and, by encouraging students to work collaboratively, it is likely that you will allow them access to more of the key processes than if they were to work individually. You will need to think about how your class will work on this task. Will they work in pairs, threes or larger groups? If pupils are not used to working in groups in mathematics, you may wish to spend some time talking about their rules and procedures to maximise the effectiveness and engagement of pupils in group work (You may wish to look at the SNS Pedagogy and practice pack Unit 10: Guidance for groupwork). You may wish to encourage the groups to delegate different areas of responsibility to specific group members. Assessment: You may wish to consider how you will assess the task and how you will record your assessment. This could include developing the assessment criteria with your class. You might choose to focus on the content objectives or on the process objectives. You might decide that this activity lends itself to comment only marking or to student self-assessment. If you decide that the outcome is to be a presentation or a poster, then you may find that this lends itself to peer assessment. If you use the APP model of assessment, then you might use this activity to help you in building a picture of your students’ understanding. Assessment criteria to focus on might be: make and justify estimates and approximations of calculations (calculating level 7) use a calculator efficiently and appropriately to perform complex calculations with numbers of any size, knowing not to round during intermediate steps of a calculation (calculating level 7) calculating with powers, roots and numbers expressed in standard form, checking for correct order of magnitude and using a calculator as appropriate (calculating level 8) solve problems and carry through substantial tasks by breaking them into smaller, more manageable tasks, using a range of efficient techniques, methods and resources, including ICT; give solutions to an appropriate degree of accuracy (using and applying mathematics level 6).

7. Probing questions: Initially students could brainstorm issues to consider. You may wish to introduce some points into the discussion, which might include: what’s the first question you’d like to ask to help you work on this problem? why would you use standard form to describe this amount of money? how did Dalton Chiscolm come up with this sum of money? what will he do with the money? You will need: The PowerPoint presentation. There are three slides: The first slide sets the scene. The second slide introduces students to the prefixes used to write large numbers and poses a question using the word ‘yotta’. The last slide invites students to explain how much money is $1 784 billion trillion.