Introduction to Mathematical Modeling: “What is Math Good for Anyway?”

The goal of this ETP is to re-introduce students to mathematics through the lens of mathematical modeling, and reframe the relevance of uncertainty, contextualization in high school mathematics education. Students will be introduced to mathematical modeling as an overall concept and learn about the differences between pure mathematics and applied mathematics. Students will engage in the preliminary steps of modeling, focusing on formulating and defining a mathematical modeling problem. Throughout the activities, I will share with my students the process of modeling I used to estimate an incentive calculation problem I did for PCE.