Great question in that it touches on my view that much of the current emphasis on math and science in high school is misguided, focusing on quantity rather than quality. I've been an engineering manager for more than 25 years and in my experience a person's ability to communicate well in both writing and speaking is a better indicator of success than a bag of technical skills. An engineer who can write a well-reasoned and persuasive analysis is more valuable to the company in the long run than one who is a technical whiz but can't communicate his or her ideas. Math and science skills are important but they need to be applied, not just regurgitated.
To apply math in writing I would encourage your students to write numerate essays, that is, to include arguments based on numerical data that demonstrate that they have modeled the problem, not just thrown out disconnected statistics. I often read articles in newspapers and magazines that include bad math, and not just subtle statistical mistakes but rather wrongly modeling the question. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal argued that if someone wants to be a CEO he should attend the University of Wisconsin rather than Harvard because slightly more Fortune 500 CEOs attended Wisconsin than Harvard. This completely misses the fact that Wisconsin has many times the student body of Harvard thus a random Harvard student is far more likely to become a CEO than a random Wisconsin student.
Similarly for writing incorporating science, students should demonstrate that they understand the scientific method and are not just sprinkling their writing with scientific terms. They should be able to use logic to decide what facts are sufficient to reasonably prove an argument and what facts are irrelevant. They should be able to re-interpret old facts in new ways, the so-called paradigm shift. And they should be able to describe what additional information or tests are necessary to further elucidate or confirm their position.
As inspirational material I suggest Sherlock Holmes. Too much science fiction incorporates imagination without reason. Holmes celebrates reason even if it's sometimes a bit contrived. Challenge your students to find flaws in Holmes' logic.
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Great question in that it touches on my view that much of the current emphasis on math and science in high school is misguided, focusing on quantity rather than quality. I've been an engineering manager for more than 25 years and in my experience a person's ability to communicate well in both writing and speaking is a better indicator of success than a bag of technical skills. An engineer who can write a well-reasoned and persuasive analysis is more valuable to the company in the long run than one who is a technical whiz but can't communicate his or her ideas. Math and science skills are important but they need to be applied, not just regurgitated. To apply math in writing I would encourage your students to write numerate essays, that is, to include arguments based on numerical data that demonstrate that they have modeled the problem, not just thrown out disconnected statistics. I often read articles in newspapers and magazines that include bad math, and not just subtle statistical mistakes but rather wrongly modeling the question. For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal argued that if someone wants to be a CEO he should attend the University of Wisconsin rather than Harvard because slightly more Fortune 500 CEOs attended Wisconsin than Harvard. This completely misses the fact that Wisconsin has many times the student body of Harvard thus a random Harvard student is far more likely to become a CEO than a random Wisconsin student. Similarly for writing incorporating science, students should demonstrate that they understand the scientific method and are not just sprinkling their writing with scientific terms. They should be able to use logic to decide what facts are sufficient to reasonably prove an argument and what facts are irrelevant. They should be able to re-interpret old facts in new ways, the so-called paradigm shift. And they should be able to describe what additional information or tests are necessary to further elucidate or confirm their position. As inspirational material I suggest Sherlock Holmes. Too much science fiction incorporates imagination without reason. Holmes celebrates reason even if it's sometimes a bit contrived. Challenge your students to find flaws in Holmes' logic.