In this post, I share my current work on a new section that will be part of my ALAF textbook project. This section is titled “Types of Math Models.” The goal of this work is to give a detailed overview of how math models are used in the world so that students can start to understand the larger contexts for the math they study in school. In this work I highlight five different categories of mathematical models including:
- Models to understand our physical world
- Models to conduct unethical or impractical experiments
- Models to inform public policy
- Models to make money
- Models to save money
Under each category of model, I provide some real-world historical examples so that students can ground their intuition in concrete examples that show up in their world. I’m still early in the drafting process but I’m excited to share this work. I can’t wait to have students discover the frequency with which linear algebra shows up in so many of the models I highlight in this section.
Jeff Anderson 