What is the product of prime factors of 270?

Firstly we need to make sure we understand the question and do this by defining the key elements:
Prime number: A number that can only be divided by itself and 1 to give a whole number, i.e. 3, 7, 11
Factor: A number that, when multiplied by a whole number, gives the original number, i.e. 3 and 9 are multiples of 27
Now moving on to tackle the question, to find the prime factors of 270 we need to divide it down into smaller multiples.
Try and start by diving by larger numbers, this makes it easier. As we go along, underline any PRIME NUMBERS that come up as multiples so that it is easy to spot them at the end.
270 ends in a 0 so we can see that it divides into 10, 27 times. This gives the first two multiples; 27 and 10. As neither of these are prime numbers, we can keep dividing them.
Multiples of 27:3 x 9 = 27 (3 is a prime number so we stop there but 9 can be divided again).3 x 3 = 9
Multiples of 102 x 5 = 10
Okay now that we have split all of the multiples down into prime numbers, all we need to do now is look back across our work and write down all of the underlines prime numbers.
270 = 3 x 3 x 3 x 2 x 5
This can also be written as: 270 = 2 x 3³ x 5