What Is a Math Problem with a Global Context?
In order for a math problem to be considered having a global context, it
must not only provide practice for the learning outcomes in the course, but
it must use information that focuses on data from another country or
countries. The context of the problem can be anything international such
as world history, current events, geography, economics, population,
ecology, etc.
For example, a problem that requests the students to calculate the height
of a building that happens to be in Italy is not a good example of a problem
with a global context because it could be a building in any location. In
order to make this into a problem with a global context, you would want to
provide some background information on the building from a historical
perspective (or have students research the information). For example,
using the Leaning Tower of Pisa to do the calculations and then providing a
historical context of the building involving Galileo.
Another example of a problem with a global context could be giving
students a list of countries to look up the exchange rates in the local
currency and converting it to U.S. dollars, or using the data from the Center
for Disease Control and coming up with an equation that models the data
across countries.
Kurt Overheiser, Julia Nudel, and Damion Hammock, Valencia College (2014), College Algebra