Some Ideas of Introducing Mathematical Modeling in Hong Kong Classrooms

Mathematical modeling is a bridge to STEM education. It can be understood as a process of creating a mathematical representation of a real-world scenario to make a prediction. In the process, we will simplify the scenario by making assumptions, propose a model, and progressively refine the model by considering new factors.

In recent years, the Education Bureau (EDB) promotes the introduction to mathematical modeling in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. Several exemplars have been published for teachers’ references, such as “Mathematical Modelling on the Accommodation Demand of Visitors to Hong Kong” (EDB, n.d.). We thus analyzed these exemplars and come up with a design framework for future modeling activities, as presented in Lo, Huang, and Cheung (2022).

Take the aforementioned exemplar as an example. It guides students to model the accommodation demand of visitors to Hong Kong across time. As the first step, it (at the time of EDB’s writing) suggests us to consider the number of visitor arrivals from 2012 to 2018. In the following figure, students can see that there may be an increasing trend or exponential growth. By clicking some buttons in MS Excel, we can add a line to forecast the trend (but I think no need to tell your students the name of this line, or you want to frighten them?). Now, I mean after the COVID-19 pandemic, we can ask our students, “What assumptions are made in the model?” and “Which assumptions may be vulnerable to hold in real-life scenarios?”