Computer software can also be very useful. Spreadsheets, for example, can show a great many ratios on the screen at the same time. The cumulative progress indicators for grade 8 appear below in boldface type. Each indicator is followed by activities which illustrate how it can be addressed in the classroom in grades 7 and 8. Understand money notations, count and compute money, and recognize the decimal nature of United States currency.
Students use time-cards and pay rates to compute weekly wages and deductions for various workers.
Extend their understanding of the number system by constructing meanings for integers, rational numbers, percents, exponents, roots, absolute values, and numbers represented in scientific notation. Students use a bookkeeping simulation to explore the effect of bills and credits coming into, or going out of, their business. These financial activities are recorded as various actions on positive and negative integers, all affecting the net worth of the business. Students view the Powers of Ten video, developed to show how one's view of the world is affected by changes in the order of magnitude of one's position. Students explore absolute values as the distance between two points on a number line and compare this to subtraction.