You are required to do a midterm project for this class.
For this project, you are asked to explore a topic related to the material in the class in some depth. Your project must go beyond what we cover in class. This activity is meant to be “open-ended” — you should explore what you are curious about — and I am open to all kinds of possible deliverables. The “standard” possibility is to do a report of about 5 or more (single-spaced) pages, but really anything is possible, as long as it is substantial, and at least equivalent to about a 5 page paper in work.
You may not submit a project for this class that you also plan to submit or have previously submitted to another class.
Reports are to be submitted in class, or by email to the professor with the subject line “Math 181 midterm project”, by the beginning of class on Tuesday, February 19. You are encouraged to email the professor with any questions.
Here are some specific suggestions for your midterm project.
(Your project does not need to be about math from the period we have discussed in class (ie the ancient world), but my suggestions will be.)
Here are some guidelines for preparing a strong midterm project:
I would say a good way to think about the project is: pick a topic you are interested in, and think about how you would explain it to someone else in the class. Then, try to present your explanation as a clear, compelling 5 page report. (Or in some other format — other formats are welcome!)
If you write a paper, you should probably start your paper with an abstract, where you say what you will do in the paper. Then, you should have a brief introduction, where you give for example very brief background and/or motivation for why the topic you are writing about should interest your audience. Then, you will have the body of your paper where you explain things clearly. And then, probably, you will have a very brief conclusion. I think a really good test is — say one of your classmates gave you a project about some topic they were interested in…what would that look like, so that you would enjoy it, and feel like you learned something interesting? It is extremely important that the paper is in your own words, unless you are quoting someone else, for which proper citation is required.
If you would like to look at some strong sample papers, I would suggest:
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-034-honors-differential-equations-spring-2009/projects/. (The topic for that course was different than the topic for our course, but hopefully the samples are still useful.)
If you do a format other than a paper, just make sure it is compelling and strong. I am not grading looking for any one thing in particular; I will just be trying to reward high quality, diligent work.