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| Summer math camps for local high-school students featured exercises showcasing how mathematics is used in real-life situations including crime-scene investigations. Photo by Nathan Latil. |
Yellow crime-scene tape blocked the entrance to Hume Hall. Just inside the doors, red tape outlined the place the “body” was found. It would take some of the brightest minds in northern Mississippi to solve the case.
That was the scenario waiting for 13 high-school students during a weeklong summer math camp at UM. The setup jump-started the camp, providing a real-life situation in which students could learn how mathematics is used in everyday life.
“Math has a reputation of being a rather dry subject,” said Tristan Denley, UM mathematics chair and a camp instructor. “We introduced these students to a wide range of math skills, and, hopefully, the math came alive and inspired them. We wanted the students to realize that math is useful in everyday, real life.”
University Police Department Sgt. David Mahaffey briefed the students on the known details surrounding the “death,” including the time the body was discovered and the temperature of the body when the coroner arrived. Applying Newton’s law of cooling and other physics equations, the students determined the time of death and judged whether the death was an accident, suicide or murder. To help uncover clues, the students decoded messages discovered on a USB drive.
The crime-scene exercise, inspired by the CBS television series “NUMB3RS,” and the MathCamp experience were intended to encourage the students to consider college majors in fields such as science, mathematics and engineering.
UM’s new Center for Mathematics and Science Education, funded through a $1.2 million gift from the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation, sponsored the camp. The center aims to improve math and science education across the state by fostering interaction between UM and K-12 public schools.