standard_description: Use numbers expressed in the form of a single digit times an integer power of 10 to estimate very large or very small quantities, and to express how many times as much one is than the other. For example, estimate the population of the United States as 3 × 108 and the population of the world as 7 × 109, and determine that the world population is more than 20 times larger.
problem_activity: Task
A penny is about $\frac{1}{16}$ of an inch thick.
In 2011 there were approximately 5 billion pennies minted. If all of these pennies were placed in a single stack, how many miles high would that stack be?
In the past 100 years, nearly 500 billion pennies have been minted. If all of these pennies were placed in a single stack, how many miles high would that stack be?
The distance from the moon to the earth is about 239,000 miles. How many pennies would need to be in a stack in order to reach the moon?


aligns: yes