In most European countries, a fifth all of two-car accidents are caused by an unsuitable safety distance between the two cars. Failing to keep distance is especially dangerous on high-speed and heavy-traffic roads where the risks of pile-up accidents are high.
This series of student centred activities engages groups of students to apply modelling tools in relation to braking distances of cars. It will allow them to construct their own rules of thumbs in relation to driving with a safe distance. A significant amount of traffic accidents are related to one or more of the people involved having consumed alcohol. This series of student centred activities engages groups of students to use and individualise a mathematical model of alcohol degradation.
Students answer the question title by constructing a rule of thumb about how much alcohol they as individuals can drink before driving, and how long they must wait before driving. They can use this rule as a guide in situations in which they are in doubt whether they can legally drive.
And maybe they can avoid being involved in accidents. This series of student centred activities engages groups of students to apply mathematical modelling tools in exploring the difficult social, political and ethical question of whether overpopulation is a threat, and if so, what to do about it. The students are introduced to the different tropes of mathematical models and modelling tools. The series assumes a very basic familiarity with exponential functions, but can also be used as an introduction of the concept of exponential growth.
In this activity students will play a role play about the Manhattan project. They will be placed in groups in which each of them play a particular real historical person who was somehow involved with the development of the first nuclear bomb.
