Answer:
Explanation:
If you aren't supposed to do this on your calculator, then you'd have to figure out a way to get the bases of 10 to have the same power somehow in order to use the properties of exponents. This is the problem (you multiply the 2 dimensions together to find area, remember):
You cannot simply add the exponents on the 10's and say your power is 9...cuz it's not. It needs to be rewritten so that there is a power of 4 on the 10 in the parenthesis on the left. Do that this way:
Now you've got a common power of 4 between the 2 sets of parenthesis. 10 to the first is the same as 10, so multiplying that into the 5.5 gives us
55 * 4.2 is 231 and 10 to the 4th times 10 to the 4th is 10 to the 8th.
But that's not in correct scientific notation. If we move the decimal to places to the left, we have to add 2 to the exponent of 8, giving us, finally,
Next use the hint to convert that to kilometers:
Dividing like bases means we subtract the lower exponent from the upper. 10 - 6 = 4, so the equivalent number of km squared is
2.31 × 10⁴ km²
Kilometers are comparable to miles, which is how we measure large things, like pieces of land. So it would be better to measure the forest in kilometers squared instead of meters squared.