Many people think that Mathematics is tedious and unessential for their lives. However, for many, Maths is integrated into so many jobs and careers. Some people who immerse themselves in Mathematics can even use it to change the world.
So, how can Mathematics make a change? What techniques and methods is mathematics used to enhance data and research? How does Maths help make a decision?
Adrian Chavez-Nahui, Lucas Trim and I were tasked with presenting how Maths is important for sustainability in our latest Year 9 Mathematics Project. We decided to use a Powerpoint to explain how Mathematics is useful in three main ways: Filtering Data, Extrapolating and Developing Plans.
Below is our Powerpoint, which is NOT self-explanatory as we presented it verbally. However, hopefully it makes enough sense as it is.
Our most powerful capability was problem-solving. We were always able to get past any problem, and find solutions. For example, when Lucas wasn’t progressing on his interactive graph as quickly as he hoped. He realised that it would be a waste of time to complete it, so he rounded it off quickly and moved onto another task. While this is not directly achieving a goal, it prevented us from wasting further time and he made the right call.
Our group was quite collaborative, however I feel like we could’ve been a bit more organised. I think that we should’ve quickened up the pace a bit more as certain team members had to pull more than their weight to get the Powerpoint ready for presentation.
However, we were quite satisfied with what we achieved, and I feel that we also chose a topic we all enjoyed. We started off with the discussion that reducing carbon emissions through the topic of electric cars could be a great idea, and we expanded our topic from there.
We integrated a lot of mathematics into our presentation and used various formats, such as Excel, bar graphs, bar chart races and area graphs. We used a variety of trusted sources including the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). We also used recommended data banks such as theworldindata.org.
In summary, we worked well as a team and, in the end, created a sizeable project that we are quite happy with. We constructed a good argument and we were ultimately ready to present. Just remember, hard work and mathematics always pays off!