In 14643 years, the Caspian Sea wont exist anymore. Why do I know this? This unit in math we focused on Linear Equations but to take the math to real world problems, we used the data from something connected to climate change. Adlih & I decided to focus on the water level in the Caspian Sea, as the depth is getting lower every year. How did we figure this out? Take a look at the keynote Adlih and I made.

THE MATH

y =  depth

m = rate of change (-0.07 meters per year)

x = time

b = depth of lake right now  (1025 meters)

With the base equation of y = mx + b we added the values listed above and made this graph, which expresses how long it will take until the Caspian Sea doesn’t exist anymore. 14643 years. That’s around 180 lifetimes until the sea isn’t there.

CIRCULAR COMPETENCIES

CONNECTING AND REFLECTING: Because this project is using mathematics in real life situations, I had to do a lot of connecting. Research to connect for example m & b to a number/value. After this, I had to reflect to make sure everything ran through smoothly, and if not, educate myself/ask for help and revise.

UNDERSTANDING  AND SOLVING: To do this project, you needed to understand fully the math before diving into the rest of it. I made sure through paying attention in all class discussions and lessons, and through asking for help that I fully understand the math. On the solving side, obviously you had to solve the driving question through your project and we did that by finding out there wont be water in the Caspian Sea in around 14000 years!

QUESTIONING AND PREDICTING: Because this project is very opened ended, adlih and I had to decide and perdict what a good place/temperature to focus on. This included predicting as not all seas/lakes/oceans are going to rapidly change like the Caspian Sea, so through trial and error we decided the Caspian Sea would be an interesting yet challenging place to do our project on.

MIND MAP

While this may seem vague, even though linear equations seem scary, they are pretty simple when you break them down.