What is BioCalc?
In the past ten years, the importance of mathematics in the life sciences has been growing at at a fast clip. Realizing this, Professor Sondra Lazarowitz of the School of Life Sciences in 1991 noted that Life Science students had a very poor impression of calculus and often slid by with a C or worse. When she asked them why, they said that there was little in the standard calculus course for them. They felt it was a course for engineers only. It did not connect with their professional plans.
BioCalc was created to address this issue. BioCalc is the Calculus&Mathematica version of Calculus 1 tailored to meet the needs of life science students through the study of many life science models. Sudents in BioCalc experience first hand the vivid connection between calculus and the life sciences.They no longer ask."what's this stuff good for?"
Professor Philippe Tondeur, chair of the Department of Mathematics at UIUC has said.:BioCalc has proved to be very successful."
Comments from Students
I am currently a 2nd year Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota in Geology and want to report the advantages that C&M DiffEq has given me. It turns out that describing the mathematics of deformation in rocks is simply the flow section of C&M Diffeq expanded to 3-D. If you can find the strain matrix of the rocks (matrix of the diffeq in C&M), you can get flow paths and watch how the rock deforms. Another one of my advisor's students had been working on this before I came and has developed the theory behind relating these flow paths to rock deformation. It was considered quite neat that I had actually learned how to do this as an undergrad in C&M. I am using the C&M DiffEq lessons to teach new geology grad students the mathematics behind our work.
Tech Support
Techs support both the lab machines and the software used in this program.
In the event of a problem, send an e-mail to tech@cm.math.uiuc.edu.
