<%@ Language=VBScript %> Bridge Course Materials
As Distributed at the TMP Summer Institute- August, 2008

 

 Welcome to the

TMP: Yakima Valley Project's

Bridge Course Materials
 

Contact Stuart Boersma [boersmas@cwu.edu] with any questions or concerns.

 Note: The following classroom activities and resources are being provided to TMP Summer Institute 2008 attendees.  Feel free to download, modify, and use the following activities.  If you use an activity, please send me a short email [ boersmas@cwu.edu ].  Thank you!

 

Current Drafts of Student Activities

Probability and Statistics

  1. Red Fish, Blue Fish, One Fish, Two Fish...  An introduction to exploratory data analysis using fish counts at Bonneville Dam.
  1. Getting to Know Your Class:  A classroom survey to gather data that can be referred to in later parts of the course.
  1. How Many Birthdays Today?: Using basic counting skills and strategies, compute the likelihood of two people in your class having the same birthday.

     

  2. To Switch or not to Switch, That is the Question!  Exploratory activity in basic probability to investigate the famous "Monty Hall Problem"
  1. Accuracy and Apparent Accuracy in Medical Testing: An in-depth look at the factors surrounding "false positives" in medical screening.  Notions of sensitivity, specificity, apparent sensitivity, and apparent specificity are investigated.

Introduction to Modeling

  1. The Battle of Trafalgar: Mathematics Meets History: Uses the setting of the battle of Trafalgar to give students an introduction to the concept of modeling.  Uses proportional analysis and recursive calculations to study two different battle strategies.
  1. Let it Grow, Let it Grow, Let it Grow,...  Explores the exponential (Malthusian) and logistic models of population using both real and imaginative data.
  1. Cool! Introduces students to Newton's Law of Cooling and examines how to fit such a mode to real data.
  1. What's Your Function? Uses logarithms and the notion of linear fits to help decide which types of functions (linear, power, exponential) best fit given data. 
  1. Fish and Fishing: An Ecological Model of Fish Harvesting A more in-depth look at population modeling.  The logistic model is expanded on to include yearly "harvest" figures resulting in very interesting dynamics.