Campus Report: Calculus Research Projects at Roosevelt University

By Melanie Pivarski and Barbara Gonzalez

Two years ago Roosevelt University SENCERized its Calculus II course to include semester long research projects designed by faculty. This summer two Roosevelt University undergraduates, Carina Balan and Jonathan Castaldo, joined in the fun! They studied the literature on projects in calculus, and they each designed a project for us to use in our course here. Both students were funded as a part of an NSF-STEP grant.

Carina Balan is a sophomore Actuarial Science major. Carina's project builds on the idea of population growth. In it, students learn about modeling population in an ideal setting: a petri dish. They study different types of models and how they arise. Then they see how this applies to human population on earth. Carina presented her work in a talk at the 21st Argonne Symposium for Undergraduates in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics and also at Roosevelt University's Math x-Position. We are working with Dr. Robert Seiser, a SENCER leadership fellow here at Roosevelt, to use data from his lab in this project with our Calculus II classes this spring.

Jonathan Castaldo is a second year mathematics major who was a student in a SENCERized Calculus II course in Spring 2011. Jonathan's project deals with modeling greenhouse gases. In it, he leads students through how to find a line of regression using calculus and curve fitting. John presented his work in a talk at the 21st Argonne Symposium for Undergraduates in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics and also at Roosevelt University's Math x-Position. We plan to use his project in an upcoming semester of Calculus II.