A Multivariable Calculus Sustainability Infusion

Mara A Freilich, Jennifer French, Kyle McKee

Climate change is one of the big challenges facing this generation. Given the threats faced by climate change, it is important that everyone have an education that allows them to engage with the issue as an informed member of society. Typical math courses rarely include examples from Earth science or ecology as part of the curriculum. Incorporating sustainability into pre-requisite math classes is one way to ensure that students who often have very little time for electives, can meet the goal of becoming informed about climate change, environmental issues, and sustainability. Students increasingly share this goal. This resource also meets an important learning objective of translating knowledge to its
applications, which is an objective of many introductory math courses. Transferring math skills across disciplines is often very challenging for students. In order to support students in developing this skill, it is helpful to embed well-constructed applications word problems across a wide variety of disciplines to engage more diverse students in applications of math.