Folding Paper to the Height of the Empire State Building

This activity is appropriate for introducing the concept of exponents.  

1) Ask students to predict the number of times you would need to fold a piece of paper in half so that it would be as tall as the empire state building. Have students write their predictions on an index card.  Collect the cards

2) Record the predictions on an excel spreadsheet and find the class average.

3) Give the students the following information:  A.  Height of Empire State building: Height of Empire State Building B.  A ream of paper that contains 500 sheets of paper is approximately 2 inches in height.  

4) Additionally, give the students a piece of paper to fold to discover that folding a piece of paper in half doubles the number of "layers".

Advancing and Assessing Questions:

1.  What happens when you fold a piece of paper in half once, twice, three times?  Is there a pattern?

2.  Could you record your information in a table?

3.  How could you describe that pattern mathematically?

4.  How many pieces of paper do you need to reach 1250 ft?

5)  After discovering the number of times it would take to theoretically fold the paper in half to reach the Empire State Building, initiate a class discussion on exponents and their increasing values.

Extensions: 

Folding a football size piece of paper

Folding a piece of paper 50 times

Folding a piece of paper 103 times