| Example:
First-year Students at Rose-Hulman Link Chemistry and Mathematics
Mathematicians and chemists at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology introduce reaction
kinetics simultaneously. They present the general nth order reaction and the associated
differential equation as well as first and second order reactions (n = 1 or 2)
as important special cases. Obtaining solutions (analytical models) to the differential
equations motivates antiderivatives (or indefinite integrals). Students acquire
data from reactions in the chemistry laboratory and attempt to fit the data with
these analytical models. An application in one discipline motivates theoretical
exploration in another discipline. Models obtained from the theoretical exploration
are used to interpret laboratory data. Students begin to see how a single concept
appears in diverse contexts.
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