Students all over the state are out of school right now as officials try to fight the spread of COVID-19 but one school in Oklahoma City is using the coronavirus to keep kids learning.
By Brent Skarky
“There is a lot of rich mathematics in the study of epidemics,” said Dr. Frank Wang.
Wang is the president of the Oklahoma School of Science and Math. The hallways are empty, but he and his fellow teachers are still working putting lessons online.
Shooting them on their phones and posting on Youtube, Wang and his are getting creative.
“I hate to think of young people at home without really learning going on so im going to put out some videos,” said Dr. Wang.
Frank Wang is getting creative with his lesson plans too. He is using the current COVID-19 pandemic to teach lessons about exponentials and differential equations.
“I think people are confused. They are scratching their heads saying whats going on? I want to get them something that they can really learn about,” said Wang.
By charting numbers infected and the number of exposed, students can see how math helps officials project how the pandemic spreads.
“What I plan to do is to put these mathematical models out there for the students to play around with themselves, giving them the tools that a real epidemiologist would use so they can get a better idea of what’s going on,” said Wang.
Wang says he is going to make his lessons available to all Oklahoma kids, not just his students.
He hopes it will push some to be like 1995 OSSM graduate, Rhiju Das who Wang says is currently at Stanford University working with a team to find a cure for coronavirus.
“I'm just looking for ways that I can help young people learn a little bit about the mathematics of epidemics and hopefully some of these young people will grow up and contribute to finding the cure for not only COVID-19 disease but preventing such an outbreak again,” said Wang.
Click here to watch Dr. Wang's YouTube videos.
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