Mathematica in the Classroom

Here are just a few high school programs in which Mathematica is used as an integral part of teaching math and science.

• Through a program sponsored by Argonne National Laboratory, students at Glenbrook South High School are working with Mathematica to try out different functions, revise calculations, regraph solutions, and make conjectures about the results - activities that are essential to their fundamental understanding of calculus. "For years, science teachers have had the luxury of a lab where students experiment with chemicals, plants, or animals," explains Sandra Dawson, a mathematics teacher at Glenbrook South. "Mathematica is like a lab where students can experiment with numbers and gain a better understanding in the process."

• Calculus&Mathematica, published by Addison-Wesley, is an interactive Mathematica-based course that is used successfully at many universities. Many high schools have adopted Calculus&Mathematica through a distance education program developed and maintained by the University of Illinois. A computer linkup and instructional support from the University of Illinois Math Department provide participating rural and inner-city schools with this self-paced program. "I like the fact that we have electronic notebooks, which means we have infinite sets of examples. I would rather be in this lab and learn things on my own, by trial and error, than to run to a tutor who will only program my memory to do only certain kinds of problems," explains one Calculus&Mathematica student.

• Southwest Texas State University sponsors an annual Honors Summer Math Camp for high school juniors and seniors from over 50 high schools who use Mathematica to solve a wide range of problems in a number theory course. At the conclusion of the camp, students are encouraged to work on a Mathematica-based project during the school year and are offered support at home. "Mathematica vastly enlarges the kinds of problems one can tackle," explains Max Warshauer, camp coordinator.

This page was last modified on: 9 May 1995 at 20:32