At United States Military Academy, a unit on biological modeling applications forms the culminating component of the first semester core mathematics course for freshmen. The course emphasizes the use of problem-solving strategies and modeling to solve complex and ill-defined problems. Topic areas include functions and their shapes, data fitting,…

Included in this column are Star Trek, a geometric construction problem; a simplified approach to correlation using scattergrams; a calculus problem concerning second derivatives for extreme values; and a note on integration by parts. (MNS)