When rounding a number to the nearest million, look at the digit in the column to the right, the hundred thousands.
3 000 000, 3* 10^6
Practice makes perfect
A city has a population of 2 549 786 people. We want to round the number to the nearest million. Then we need to rewrite the outcome as a product of a single digit and a power of ten. Let's do it!
Rounding
We want to round the following value to the nearest million.
2 549 786
Let's take a look at the digit in the column to the right, the hundred thousands.
2 549 786
The number in the column is 5. Now, recall the rule for rounding.
If the number is 5 or more, round up.
If the number is 4 or less, round down.
This means we will be rounding up. Let's do that!
2 549 786 ≈ 3 000 000
We can fill in the first blank.
Rounded to the nearest million, the population is about 3 000 000.
Rewriting
Now we want to rewrite the rounded number as a product of a single digit and a power of ten.
3 000 000
For that, we will rewrite the number as its greatest place value times a power of 10. To find the exponent, we need to count the zeros in the number.
3 000 000
We see that there are 6 zeros in the number. Now, recall how the sign of the exponent changes for different numbers.
Numbers Greater Than 1
Numbers Less Than 1
positive (+)
negative (-)
Since the number is greater than 1, the exponent is positive. This means that the exponent of 10 is 6. We now have everything we need to rewrite our number.
3 000 000 = 3* 10^6
Let's fill in last two blanks.
Written as the product of a single digit and a power of ten, this number is \boxed{3}\times 10^\boxed{6}.
