"Simple mathematics helps us understand such basic things as a mortgage used to buy a house--analyzing how we must compromise between the size of the mortgage, the interest on the loan, and the time span of the loan. Make the wrong choices and buyers soon find themselves unable to afford the monthly payments," (p. 16-18) (Roman, 2004). Whether or not students plan to use higher-level math in their career, the ability to understand money, economics, and loans requires knowledge of algebra, specifically compound interest and exponents. Working out a monthly budget requires addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and even basic algebra at times.
Statistics are all around us. We are constantly inundated with statistics. What was Babe Ruth's batting average? What percentage of votes did Obama recieve? What chances do I have of winning the lottery? How many miles to the gallon does my car get? I could go on, but the point is that the world is full of statistics, and statistics are an aspect of math. People can be easily fooled by statistics as well, if they don't have a decent understanding of them. I could tell you 96% of people lose weight on a particular diet to get you to buy my products, but I could omit the fact that the people studied were also exercising and changing their lifestyles. People are led into poor financial decisions every day due to a lack of mathematical understanding.
A future blog will go more into the practical nature of math in everyday economics. Until then, that's the end of this rant.
A future blog will go more into the practical nature of math in everyday economics. Until then, that's the end of this rant.
Roman, H. (2004). Why Math is so Important. Tech Directions 63(10). Retrieved September 17 from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=110&sid=938f5e7a-40ec-4a67-bd33-c7038e633181%40sessionmgr111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=13133851
I liked that you brought up every day finances. Everyone must keep track of where their money is going and how to best spend it. Math IS necessary even if someone may argue against it. If you really think about it, you use math in one form or another everyday. Setting your alarm clock for just the right time to wake up to, purchases you make at the store, calculating how many people a recipe will use, or even cutting a recipe in half because you are only cooking for 2 instead of 4, and the list goes on. A basic understanding of math will great improve your quality of life.
ReplyDeleteMath is AWESOME! I didn't realize my true love for it until I took a college Biomechanics class. Biomechanics is basically Physics of the Human Body and I couldn't get enough. Using mathematical equations to understand how the body performs different movements is fascinating and really got me into using math in a personal way. Math is everywhere and it is so practical in its use. Thanks for a great post!
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