Environmental Mathematics in the Classroom

Book excerpt: Environmental Mathematics seeks to marry the most pressing challenge of our time with the most powerful technology of our time - mathematics. This book does this at an elementary level and demonstrates a wide variety of significant environmental applications that can be explored without resorting to calculus. Environmental Mathematics in the Classroom includes several chapters accessible enough to be a text in a general education course or to enrich an elementary algebra course. Ground-level ozone, pollution and water use, preservation of whales, mathematical economics, the movement of clouds over a mountain range, at least one population model, and a smorgasbord of 'newspaper mathematics' can be studied at this level and would form a stimulating course. It would prepare future teachers not only to learn basic mathematics, but to understand how they can integrate it into other topics that will intrigue students.