Numbers in the news

There is never a shortage of number sin the news, but I did just want to share these two posts I saw recently that I think make for excellent contexts for maths applications lessons. First there is this tweet from Mathematical Biologist Kit Yates author of 'The Mathematics of Life and Death' with a close up of the diagram below.

Without offering chapter and verse on this diagram, I think it is enough to say that ot is a great place to start a conversation. What do you notice? What do you wonder? What questions does it make is ask? What conclusions can we draw? It seems to be that there is a whole lot of thinking to be done about this and a lot of good questions that are all in the context of the syllabus for Maths Applications SL and HL and all of which could lead to some good investigation. It is also good material for ToK, so don't hesitate to share it with your ToK teachers....

The next image, on the same topic I think has all the same qualities! This tweet I picked up via Lis Wilson on Twitter is a lovely visual to help understand this key mathematical notion in the same very topical area!

As much as possible, it is important to get this kind of thing in to our classrooms, not as conclusive evidence, but as very real examples of how the mathematics we explore is describing the world around us right now. On a similar theme related to 'base rates' and the associated problems, I listened to this episode of 'Think with Pinker' to day, tipped off by my ToK colleague! 'Don't expect a Zebra'. Its another good example to share with students.

Anyway, hope you can use some of this! Have a great day.