Math Lectures Look at Educating about Sustainability while Enhancing Calculus Nov. 13-14

Story posted November 06, 2007

Tom_Pfaff.jpg

Mathematician Thomas Pfaff, whose work ties mathematics with sustainability, will give a pair of lectures at Bowdoin College November 13-14, 2007. Both lectures are free and open to the public.

On Wednesday, November 14, at 6:30 p.m., Pfaff will deliver the Charles F. Adams Lecture in Druckenmiller Hall, Room 016. A reception will precede the lecture at 6 p.m. in Druckenmiller Atrium.

The Joint Science Academies and the United Nations have called for an increased education in sustainability. In his talk, "Educating about Sustainability while Enhancing Calculus," Pfaff will discuss ways of achieving this sustainability education in a calculus course.

Pfaff will not only to show how to incorporate sustainability into calculus, but will also explain how to get students to think about larger systems and improve quantitative literacy. He will also demonstrate how it can become natural for calculus courses to work in an interdisciplinary way to make the subject matter more relevant to non-math majors taking the course.

Pfaff will also give the Department of Mathematics Seminar at 4:15 p.m., Tuesday, November 13, in Searles Science Building, Room 217.

This seminar will specifically target faculty and students, but the public is welcome. A reception will precede the talk at 4 p.m. in Searles Science Building, Room 214.

Pfaff's talk, titled "Peak Oil, CAFE Standards and a Modeling Problem," will address the question of what would be needed to reduce the overall fuel consumption of our vehicle fleet as opposed to simply slowing the increase of our fuel consumption. The simpler models that Pfaff will explore in some detail will use fitting and maximization of functions.

Thomas Pfaff's research interests include sustainability, combinatorics theory, graph theory, probability, and statistics. He has been published in multiple scholarly journals including By the Numbers, Primus, and the Missouri Journal of Mathematical Sciences. He has also solved journal problems in Mathematics Magazine as well as The Monthly.

Pfaff earned a B.S. from the State University of New York at Cortland and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. He is currently an associate professor of mathematics at Ithaca College, where he was the spring 2007 recipient of Ithaca College's Department Merit Award.

Pfaff's talks are co-sponsored by the Charles F. Adams Lectureship Fund and the Department of Mathematics. For more information call 725-3567.

« Back | « Go to Featured Events | Go to Events Calendar