TeachEngineering: It's a Connected World - The Beauty of Network Science

A series of lessons and activities show scholars how engineers use graphs to understand large and complex systems. The first lesson provides the beginnings of graph theory by introducing set theory, graphs, and degree distributions of a graph. Class members then create their own social networks by collecting signatures before graphing the interactions with their classmates and use an applet on the Internet to simulate the spread of disease. The simulation allows individuals to determine two nodes to vaccinate to limit the number of nodes infected. By running several simulations, scholars can assess the effectiveness of their plan.