Math and Social Change

Catalog description

This course combines lectures and demonstrations, classroom projects, and experimental learning. It examines contemporary global issues and utilizes mathematical concepts, tools and formulae in possible solutions for matters of injustice. We will analyze major social issues, such as but not limited to women’s rights, civil rights, immigration, ecology and LGBTQ equality, where numbers play a large role. Students rely upon their current mathematical skills, but also learn how to extend them into complex quantitative and social applications. Each reading assignment has been selected to demonstrate the social issues and to identify and practice the mathematics contained in each selection. Students will be asked to lead a discussion with the class of the assigned reading selection, analyze it for the math contained therein.