Nothing in this world is stagnant. Everything changes all the time. Some things like the weather or a scoop of ice cream left out in the hot sun can change very quickly. Other things such as an orange peel decomposing or a tree growing change very slowly over time. Other things may not have a constant rate of change. Instead, such as a baby growing, the baby will grow very fast in the first years, then it slows down the rate of growth. In the adolescent years, the rate of growth speeds up again and then slows into adulthood.

To help yourself learn about the mathematics of change, one of the best projects is to grow your own bean plant (or a plant of any kind that grows up). Keep a chart and record its daily growth. Create a graph showing the slope, or rate of change.  Learn about functions using a made-up “function machine”, compare rates of growth, examine patterns of change, describe how one variable changes in direct relation to another (such as the area of a circle and the length of its radius), be able to explain to someone else the difference between how big something is and the rate at which it grows, and construct bigger and bigger squares out of tile and describe how the area of the square changes in relation to the increasing length of its sides.