Week 10: Final Presentation and Reflection

Senior fall has just concluded! This term has been a hectic yet rewarding one, and this project really played a big part in the positive aspects of this past fall.

Yesterday, I presented my final presentation of the course to my project mentor and another teacher. Here is the link to this first draft presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSU_Lc-sICgPo-qCAAn5sTEumtwkEw15B8NxbH8PFBjQ878_eef7vCb0sSgK45ZpVfB4X1cXhipii42/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000. I say "first draft" because I will eventually present my work to my school's Math Club and political groups, so next term I'll be tailoring this presentation to each organization in order to make sure the content engaging and understandable.

And because this week was dedicated to working on the final piece of work for this project, I wanted to make sure I encompassed as many parts of my course into the presentation as possible. I covered the rationale behind why I wanted to do this IP in the first place, a brief summary of each voting method I studied and of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, how elections work on campus at my school, and a brief reflection at the end. I also attempted to make the presentation interactive and allowed for questions along the way and asked some of my own questions to the audience in order to initiate a discussion.

Looking back at this entire term, I've realized how much I've been able to learn and grow through this project. Coming into it, I only knew that plurality existed (and not even it's formal name.) I've been able to look into the mathematical aspects of all of these different electoral systems and seen how math can be used to manipulate elections. I’ve also been so much more politically-aware this term, as along the way I followed the midterm elections and read various articles on how ranked choice is playing out in Maine, for example. It’s been so cool to see the overlap between what I’m reading in the news and what I’m studying in the course. The content I've been covering in the course has brought up a lot of questions that I've parsed out with my friends, dormmates, and teachers--these conversations have been one of the best parts of this project outside of doing the research itself.

This IP has been enjoyable every step of the way. I'd like to thank my project mentor and everyone else who assisted me with the project. I'm going to try to continue doing more research as the year goes on, and if I find anything new I will certainly post the information!

Signing off for now,

Angelreana