This course actively engages student in exploring how algebra is used in the social, physical, and the life sciences. Examples of real-life applications include the following.

Students explore how to make comparisons between real data using numbers and graphs. On the first day of class, students complete a survey with information about different variables including age, height, ethnicity, employment status, and blood pressure. Using the results of the surveys, students sort, graph, and compare data from two of these variables and make conclusions from the results.

Students also use data from the Southern Miss Fact Book regarding enrollment trends to construct arguments supporting opposing points of view from the same data. Each point of view is accompanied by appropriate graphs and quantitative information including absolute changes, average rates of change, and percent changes.

Students use data from the Current Population Survey to find possible relationships between education and income (or wages). Using data, students construct and graph linear regression models describing income (or wages) as a function of years of education for particular subsets of the population.

Students develop a model for bacterial growth of E.Coli cells. Klett readings from a spectrophotometer are translated into number of cells per milliliter at given values of elapsed time. Students construct exponential models of bacterial growth as functions of elapsed time and compare the models grown under different conditions.