Math Modeling

In contrast to other previous math classes of mine, we spend a lot of time applying our knowledge to solve complex problems. Unlike, being given the material and asked to solve several equations. It is a unique experience in the sense that everyone brings their own set of skills and problem-solving abilities as we work together in groups. Thinking about questions in a logical manner is an emphasized part of the process when attempting to solve questions.

HiMCM Competition

HiMCM is a high school mathematical modeling competition. Students have the option to model two different real world problems. The students work in groups and at MAMs are tasked with solving the problem and writing up a multiple page paper on how they solved it in 36 hours. My group chose to work on a problem that dealt with estimating the future water levels of Lake Mead, which supplies water to farms and individuals in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and California. Lake Mead has been the subject level of climate change, and over the past decades its water levels have dropped significantly due to climate change. Though, future measures aim to initiate reductions in the water allocations, so we had to account for different parameters that could affect future water levels. Though, we also had to form an ideal plan for reducing water allocations. Our group approached the problem, by doing research on the states’ water consumption from Lake Mead, previous data from the inflow to lake Mead, and using measurements to calculate its volume (a factor that influenced water levels). By estimating inflow and outflow based on the year we came to our conclusions.

Hanford Problem

In Math Modeling we will also spend time using Mathematica, a computational math-based software system, to solve problems. Mathematica has its own syntax, and for this problem we were tasked with creating our residual regression line to fit the data set, which describes the relationship between cancer deaths and how close these individuals lived to radioactively contaminated areas. The paper shows a graph of the line and data, the residuals, and how I calculated the line.