Grade 6 Math: Percents, Part 1

Definition of Percent

A percent is defined as another way to write a fraction that has one hundred as the denominator. Because fractions can be written as decimals, percents can also be written as decimals.

Students learn that a fraction can be converted to a percent by first rewriting it as an equivalent fraction with a denominator of one hundred. This fraction can then be rewritten using the percent format.

Fractions that represent numbers greater than1 are written as either improper fractions or mixed numbers. In the same way that fractions can be larger than one, percents can be larger than 100. To convert a fraction larger than one written as a mixed number, students learn to convert the mixed number to an improper fraction, then to find the equivalent fraction with a denominator as 100, then rewrite that fraction as a percent. When a mixed number is converted to a percent, the percent will be larger than 100%.

In the problems in this lesson, students convert fractions to percent format.


Writing Decimals as Percents

In earlier lessons, students have learned that both decimals and percents are just another way to write fractions. Decimals can be used to rewrite fractions with any power of 10 as the denominator while percents can only be used to rewrite fractions with 100 as the denominator.

In this lesson students learn to convert decimals to tenths and hundredths to percents. To convert a decimal to tenths to a percent, they learn to first convert the decimal to a fraction, then to rewrite the fraction as an equivalent fraction with 100 as the denominator. This fraction can then be rewritten as a percent.

To convert a decimal to hundredths to a percent, the student learns to first convert the decimal to a fraction with 100 as the denominator. That fraction can then be rewritten as a percent.


Writing Percents as Decimals

To convert a percent to a decimal, the process is the reverse of the process learned earlier for converting a decimal to a percent. In this lesson, students learn to convert a percent to a decimal by first rewriting the percent as a fraction, then rewriting the fraction as a decimal.

In this lesson, students convert percentages less than and greater than 100 to decimals by first converting them to fractions with a denominator of 100.



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