Math Modeling is taught by Mrs. Burns, who is also one of my homeroom teachers. In math modeling we encounter lots of varied types of problems, and we compete in math competitions for exposure to different types of problems and thinking styles. We are encouraged to work together to solve the problems we are given, allowing us to learn many different ways of thinking and to share our ideas.
In an assignment called POW (problem of the week) we are put into small groups and given a problem that we must develop a solution for, and then, in our groups, we must develop a report for the problem and our solution. In this POW, our problem was to find which day of the week someone’s birthday falls on–as day of the week a person was born on is commonly thought to influence their personality–where we are given only a copy of the calendar for the month of October in 2023, the birthdays of some people to test our system, and some basic information about calendars. We were instructed to figure out what day of the week we were born on, and we were allowed to use only the information that we were given to do so. We then were tasked with developing some general directions that someone could follow to find the day of the week they were born on. The finalized set of directions that my group, which consisted of Keira, Samhitha, and I, came up with is linked HERE, and appears in the document to the right. This project allowed us to begin thinking about math modeling challenges, and we were able to start using some of the skills we have learned.
As a part of Math Modeling as a class, we practice on different math modeling problems, where we are given a problem, with our goal being creating a model that provides a solution to that problem. One of our first assignments was the Epsilon School problem, where we were given the problem of figuring out which departments should get more teachers to accommodate the growing class sizes. We then had to develop a solution, and then create a slideshow so we could present our solution to the entire class. My group, which consisted of me, Palak, and Dylan, came up with the solution that you can see in our slideshow HERE or to your left.