An Interdisciplinary, Multisemester Project Relating Differential Equations and Engineering - 2005 ASEE Conference

S.Pennell, P.Avitabile, J.White

Students often do not see the relevance of their mathematics courses to courses in their majors or to their careers. Consequently, their motivation to learn the material in mathematics courses is low, and their retention of this material is poor.

This paper describes an interdisciplinary, multisemester project designed to lead students to appreciate the relevance and importance of basic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) material. Starting in the sophomore level differential equations course and continuing in junior and senior level engineering courses, students analyze dynamic systems from various points of view, including mathematical modeling. This paper describes the project and the modules being developed to implement it.

A PDF file will be available for downloading shortly

In the meantime, e-mail Peter_Avitabile@uml.edu for copy of paper