Abstract

The ““new biology”” of the 21st century is increasingly dependent on mathematics, and preparing high school students to have both strong science and math skills has created major challenges for both disciplines. Researchers and educators in biology and mathematics have been working long hours on a project to create high school teaching modules suitable for both biology and mathematics classrooms, as well as classes held jointly, to help supply teachers with materials that can be used in classrooms attempting to overcome the disciplinary boundaries that often separate them. Biology topics such as evolution, ecology, bioinformatics, and epidemiology are interwoven with a variety of mathematical topics, including algebraic equations, multiplying matrices, algorithms, dynamic programming, probability, and graphing. These modules will be free to educators for a few years. We give an overview of the modules and describe how to obtain them.