Epidemiological models in high school mathematics education

Abstract

In epidemiology, compartmental models also called epidemiological models are an effective tool for understanding and describing the dynamics of infectious diseases. They give a solid direction to policy makers and public health administration on how to effectively prevent and control these diseases. Further, epidemiological models are currently used to predict the epidemiological trend of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in many countries. In this paper, we propose to teach and learn these models in high school mathematics education in order to introduce the basic concepts and notions of mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.