Does My Vote Matter?
12th Grade Math 4 || Mele Sato
This project was a deep dive into the mathematics involved in the ways that different areas of the world, mainly the U.S., makes their legislative decisions. My group, in particular, focused on researching exactly what gerrymandering is and the different ways that legislative officials tamper with the district lines in favor of their own party. From that research, we decided to redraw San Diego county's district lines in order to make things more fair for the minorities. We had to do a lot of calculations for each district which were very tedious. In the end, we had two lovely posters to show all of our hard work to in a neat and aesthetically pleasing way.
How were you challenged throughout this process? Where were you most successful? Least successful?
The biggest challenge for me was all of the tedious calculations because it was difficult for me to catch my calculations if they were wrong because I was so focused on doing them, that I didn't care to check if the answers made sense. For example, I didn't realize that the compactness measures all had to be under 1.0 and if they weren't then something was wrong with my calculations. I had to redo a few of the compactness measures because I didn't realize that having the answers greater than 1.0 was a problem. I felt most successful in calculating the approximate areas of each of the original districts because I got a hang of it pretty quickly.
What has changed about the way you think through problems or situations after completing this project? If nothing has changed, why do you think that is?
I think after this project I was more aware of the calculations and making sure they made sense to the problem. Before this, I obviously tried to make sure the solution to my problems made sense, but I never looked too much into it. I also feel like I have learned to ask for help more because I tend to stay to myself and struggle with a problem, rather than asking for help from my teachers and peers.