Mathematics appears in scores of political contexts that college students, high-schoolers, and even younger students can understand. Subjects like voting, apportionment, and gerrymandering are accessible and perfect for transdisciplinary learning since they occupy a unique place in the intersection of mathematics, statistics, computer science, political science, economics, and history. These topics have unparalleled import on democracy while being conspicuously absent from our schools.
One of IMD’s goals is to remedy this problem. We develop curricula, train teachers, and create teaching modules that foster both political quantitative literacy and the understanding of how mathematics governs many democratic processes.
Contact us to learn how IMD can bring topics like these to your classroom:
- Mathematics of the Electoral College
- Voting – plurality, ranked choice, cardinal and other methods
- Apportionment
- Impossibility theorems
- Gerrymandering – efficiency gap and compactness scores
- Quantification of power
- Game theory – conflict, bargaining, and negotiation
- Number theory of cryptography and its regulation
- Graph theory of networks and voter manipulation
- Statistics in politics
IMD Co-Founder Gives Talk on the Math Behind Voting Schemes
Prof. Stanley S. Chang, IMD Co-Founder and Professor of Mathematics at Wellesley College, recently spoke…
Summer 2023 High School Student Research at IMD
This summer, IMD is supervising high school students Aaron Wasielewski, Andrei Volić, Caroline Cordts, Emily…
IMD Affiliates Introduce New Voting Method
IMD affiliates Wesley Holliday from UC Berkeley and Eric Pacuit from University of Maryland have…
IMD/AMS Workshop Recap
On April 23-25, IMD partnered with the AMS to host a workshop on the Mathematical Foundations…
AMS Office of Government Relations Opportunities
The AMS Office of Government Relations (OGR) is an organization that advocates for mathematicians at the…
AMS Engaged Pedagogy Series – Mathematical Foundations for Democratic Processes
On April 23-25, 2023 from 1-5 pm EST, IMD is hosting a workshop on the…
