"Maths in the Wild" workshop
John Butler, a lecturer in the School of Mathematics & Statistics, will be delivering a mathematics workshop for secondary-school students showing how maths can be used to model and explain things "in the wild".
The workshop is being delivered in association with Mount Carmel Secondary School, St. Paul's CBS, Mercy Inchicore Secondary School and Cabra Community College. It will demonstrate how mathematics can be used to model and explain the real world and aims to enthuse young people about not only the importance of mathematics in their everyday lives but also the potential to learn mathematics and, through its power, provide solutions and insight into some of the global challenges we face.
The workshop will focus on two examples. The first is the well-known and easily understood predator-prey model. Students will learn about how graphs and mathematics can be used to model a predator-prey relationship, like lynxes and hares or even applied to such diverse applications as people and social media. This mathematical model has the potential not only to recreate observations from the wild but it can also be used to model changes introduced into an environment, like the reintroduction of wolves into Ireland.
The second example will consider how mathematics and neuroscience inspire machine learning. Participants will learn how machine learning algorithms are inspired by maths and neuroscience and use this to model simple decision making, e.g. "will I turn left or will I turn right?". These are the same type of models that have been adapted in real life to develop self-driving cars.
John has written about mathematics and science particularly for young people and the articles that have inspired this workshop can be found here:
- Brady RM and Butler JS (2021) The Circle of Life: The Mathematics of Predator-Prey Relationships. Front. Young Minds 9:651131. doi: 10.3389/frym.2021. 651131
- Campos JL, Pandi M and Butler JS (2020) “Feeling” Ourselves Move: A Team Effort by Our Senses. Front. Young Minds 8:9. doi: 10.3389/frym.2020.00009