For this project, students collect data on a phenomena in which they are interested, with teacher guidance, and then look for patterns in this data. They can use a variety of different means to collect their data, attempt to find a model which matches the data, and then present what they have found. Ideally students would go through multiple revisions in their data collection model to collect as clean data as possible, particularly when they end up with major problems with their results.

Some specific things which students might model:

• The growth of plants over time;
• Population growth of bacteria in a petri dish;
• Temperature during the day;
• See more ideas here.

If you want more information on what mathematical modelling looks like, see this document or this document.