Friday, April 3, 2009
The department of mathematics at the University of Kansas is taking an active role in global warming and climate change by educating students through workshops, speakers and a math competition.
April is Mathematics Awareness Month and this year’s theme is mathematics and climate. On Saturday more than 300 students from area elementary, junior high and high schools will compete in a math competition sponsored by the mathematics department. Mathematics graduate students will be teaching elementary students how math pertains to the climate through interactive presentations.
Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, chairperson of Math Awareness Month and mathematics professor, said math is used as a basis for solving the issues of climate change and in particular, global warming.
“Calculus, differential equations, probability and statistics are just some of the areas of mathematics that are used for the understanding of the oceans, polar ice caps and the complex interactions among all those systems,” Pasik-Duncan said.
She said mathematicians try to model those uncertainties and make predications based on that information.
“In climate change you can better predict catastrophes such as earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes and storms,” Pasik-Duncan said.
For students who are interested in math, science and technology, this is opportunity for them to thrive, she said.
“This kind of situation, mathematics and climate is supposed to make students aware that there is so much that they can contribute to as far as problem solving,” Pasik-Duncan said.
Tim Dorn, mathematics graduate student, along with other graduate students, is organizing a workshop for sixth graders from Hilcrest Elementary, 1045 Hiltop Dr., on April 15, to show how math is used in their every day lives.
“Math is a language used to translate real world problems into something all students can understand,” Dorn said.
He explained how animals are affected by climate change, specifically polar bears.
“Climate change causes animals to move to different habitats because their habitats are slowly deteriorating,” Dorn said. “How long until there are no more polar bears?”
Dorn said plans for the workshop are still in development, but they would have other projects for students to participate in this month.
He said there would be nine graduate students assisting in the workshop.
Kerrie Brecheisen, administrative associate in the department of mathematics, said all of the visiting students were given five questions and had 40 minutes to answer them. Pasik-Duncha said students’ focus should not necessarily be on getting the right answer, but on logical thinking to reach the answer. She said their interests was in how students derive solutions.
“We will focus on analytical and theological thinking and communication,” Pasik-Duncan said. “We want to know what kind of students we will have when they are out of high school. We want to know how they think.”
Brecheisen said Lynne Yengulalp, graduate student, will do a presentation showing students how two opposite points on the globe will have the same temperature at a particular time.
“They are trying to come up with fun things that the kids can actually grasp and that have a wow factor to it,” Brecheisen said.
— — Edited by Sam Speer
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Comments
Teaching global warming through math
Did I see someone make a reference to earthquakes having to do with climate change up there? I believe I did.
Teaching global warming through math
“In climate change you can better predict catastrophes such as earthquakes, flooding, tornadoes and storms,” Pasik-Duncan said. Does not make sense to me and I tried to think it though. Earthquakes are caused by faulting, a sudden lateral or vertical movement of rock along a rupture (break) surface. How would the heating or cooling of the earths surface and air cause an earthquake? Otherwise I think math is extremely important and people need to understand how it is used to solve all kinds of problems in life.
Teaching global warming through math
Maybe they can show the mathmatical relationship between polar ice melting on Mars, and polar ice melting on Earth. The last time I checked, mathmatically, they looked about the same... Are there SUV's on Mars? I'd ask the math dept.
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