Modeling the Misery of the Flu: The Math Behind the Valle Crucis School Outbreak

This was my favorite project, and I developed a love for mathematical modeling this year. For this project, I researched SIR models, which help predict how a disease can and will develop, and created models to predict how many people would be susceptible to infection, how many would be infected and how many would recover in a 24-hour period using three scenarios: taking no preventative measures, taking some preventative measures and taking significant preventative measures. One of the things I learned doing this project is the importance of acknowledging and understanding the limitations of the model and the available data. At the state competition, I was not able to explain this to the satisfaction of one of the judges.