UMass Prison Education Initiative

Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee

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Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee

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Facility: Western Massachusetts Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee

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Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton

Course description: This course is an introduction to both mathematical modeling and to coding. Models and simulations help us make sense of the world. Physical, biological, and social systems are complex and chaotic. Through modeling and coding, we can abstract systems like these in useful ways. The main goal of the class is to learn how to translate real-world problems into quantitative terms and to implement these models in Python to simulate them computationally in order to yield interesting interpretations of these problems, suggestions of improvement and future predictions.

By the end of the course, students should be able to
1. Create models of different kinds of systems (e.g., populations, thermal systems, mechanical systems) using multiple kinds of appropriate abstractions (e.g., free-body diagrams, stock-and-flow diagrams), validate the predictions of your models using different approaches (e.g., estimation, physical laws, analytical solutions), and use your models to do useful work (e.g., make predictions, explain behavior, evaluate design decisions).
2. Use Python to implement models, run simulations, work with data, and generate visualizations, and demonstrate development of key computational skills (e.g., software development, debugging, problem decomposition, functional abstraction).
3. Be a critical consumer of models (e.g., by assessing a model that you encounter and evaluating whether it is appropriate and useful for a given purpose). Understand the opportunities and responsibilities involved in creating and using models.

Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton

Course description: We will cover the following topics: sets, applications of Venn diagrams, introduction to probability, basic concepts of probability, conditional probability, independent events, Bayes’ theorem, the multiplication principle, permutations, combinations, probability applications of counting principle, binomial probability, probability distributions; expected value, frequency distributions; measures of central tendency, measures of variation, the normal distribution, normal approximation to the binomial distribution, slopes and equations of lines, linear functions and applications, the least squares line, solution of linear systems by the echelon method, solution of linear systems by the Gauss-Jordan method, addition and subtraction of matrices, multiplication of matrices, matrix inverses, graphing linear inequalities, solving linear programming problems graphically, applications of linear programming, the simplex method, graph theory.

Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton

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Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton

Organized by Annie Raymond, this lecture series featured the following topics and speakers:
-Math magic by Annie Raymond
-From Segregation to Department Head With a Lot of Help Along the Way by Nathaniel Whitaker
-The Attack on Urban Neighborhoods by Jonathan Wynn
-Psychology of Peace and Violence by Quinnehtukqut McLamore
-Social relationships among different animal species by Nikki Lee
-Supreme Myths about the High Court by Paul Collins
-Memory and the brain by Rosie Cowell
-Theories of Crime by Wenona Rymond-Richmond

Facility: Hampshire County Jail in Northampton

Math Circles aim to present math in a different way through puzzles and experiments. Among many others, topics explored that semester included how to split a cake (or rent!) in an envy-free way way, how to pair and marry off people so that no couple gets divorced, and how to cross rivers.