The pedagogical power of context: iterative calculus methods and the epidemiology of Eyam

Abstract

When students of the physical sciences transition from school to university, they discover that knowledge of calculus is as vital as arithmetic, and that there is precious little useful information written without calculus. However, the lack of calculus in pre-university physics studies persists, especially in its application to the modelling of physical systems. Introductory courses at university in calculus often have a very different style to school-level work, and consequently many students find the step up difficult. This paper hopes to convey some examples of school-level work in numerical methods that can provide useful visualisations to aid comprehension and to incentivise the acquisition of skills in calculus. The modern pre-university student of the physical sciences would also do well to develop the precursors to coding, and learn the basics of modelling using spreadsheets.