At the American International School Lusaka (Zambia), across the whole high school, one hour a week is dedicated to global issues discussion. This can take the form of articles reading / round tables, guest-speakers, develop new CAS/C&S projects, etc. This year a group of very talented students have started to approach this session under a maths/sciences lens.
The idea is to mathematically model an issue related to biodiversity. At the moment, we are looking at two issues. How to model an ecosystem that could prevent the spread of invasive plants in rivers? Several rivers and wetlands of Zambia have been invaded by such plants. This bring various environmental issues as well as severe electricity cut as the plants interfere with nearby electrical dams. The other project is to model the ecosystem of a fishpond in rural area in order to meet the nutritious needs of the people.
If any school have already undertake such projects and would like to share their expertise, it would be greatly appreciated. Or if you would like to joint us in the search/modeling of data, that could be great as well!
Feel Free to contact us to know more about the projects.
Francois de Ryckel
