MATH 1106 - Modeling with Calculus for the Life Sciences

(MQR-AS, SMR-AS)

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Forbidden Overlap: due to an overlap in content, students will not receive credit for both MATH 1106 and MATH 1110.
Prerequisite: three years of high school mathematics (including trigonometry and logarithms) or a precalculus course (e.g., MATH 1101). No prior knowledge of calculus is required. Students who plan to take more than one semester of calculus should take MATH 1110 rather than MATH 1106. For guidance in selecting an appropriate course, please consult First Steps in Math.

Staff.

The goal of this course is to give students a strong basis in some quantitative skills needed in the life and social sciences. There will be an emphasis on modeling, using fundamental concepts from calculus developed in the course, including: derivatives, integrals, and introductory differential equations. Examples from the life sciences are used throughout the course. To give a concrete example, we will study predator-prey populations. We will write down mathematical models that describe the evolution of these populations, analyze both quantitative and qualitative properties to make predictions about the future of these populations, and discuss the assumptions and limitations of the models. Note that while we will cover the topics of derivatives and integrals, this course has a different, much more applied, focus from courses such as MATH 1110 or a typical high school calculus course.