The Bridge to Calculus Program has been a smashing success, and over the past few years it has expanded. It now offers courses in physics, biology, chemistry and more.
Lego blocks can be surprisingly helpful for teaching students how mass is distributed throughout the universe.
That’s why Northeastern professor Stefan Kautsch made them a central focus of the physics component of the university’s Bridge to Science summer program, an expansion of the longstanding Bridge to Calculus program.
The six-week training bootcamp is designed for underserved Boston Public School students to sharpen their calculus and STEM-based skills before the start of the new school year.
But what do Legos have to do with physics or calculus?
Lego sets all follow a similar 4:1 ratio — for every large Lego piece, there are equivalent four smaller pieces that equal half of its mass, Kautsch says. Notably, that same ratio can be observed in the stars.
“For every star that is the mass of the sun, there are four stars with half of the mass of the sun,” he says. That ratio can be observed again and again in the formation of galaxy clusters and planets.
For Albert Pham, a 17-year-old student enrolled in the program, Kautsch’s instruction has been illuminating. Kautsch taught the class in collaboration with Yuyu Chen, a Boston Public Schools math teacher.
Since starting the class, Pham has built autonomous robots, measured moving objects using kinematics, and this week is analyzing the mass of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi starfighter — or at least the Lego version of it.
He’s one of the more than 100 students enrolled in the Bridge to Calculus summer program, which over the past few years has expanded its scope to include courses on physics, biology and chemistry, explains Bindu Veetel, a mathematics professor and coordinator of the program.
Students are paid to attend the program, which is provided through the support of Northeastern’s Community to Community Impact Engine.
The Bridge to Calculus program was started by former Northeastern math professor Bob Case in 1994 after he noticed that many high schools in the area did not offer any AP calculus courses.
A big reason why was because many students were simply not prepared to take on those higher-level math courses.
“The solution he came up with is that he would bring those students onto Northeastern’s campus for a six-week course predominantly focused on precalculus,” she says. “Then they would be ready to take up higher calculus courses, and hence the schools would see that and begin offering them.”
Importantly, Case enlisted Boston’s best public school math teachers to run the courses. Northeastern students were also recruited to serve as TAs and mentors in each class.
The Bridge to Calculus Program has been a smashing success over the past 30 years and helped hundreds of Boston Public School students.
When Veetel became the director in 2023, she decided to expand the program to include other subjects as well, recognizing that calculus is “the gateway to all STEM courses.” Veetel enlisted the help of a few Northeastern colleagues to create the Bridge to Science program expansion.
In the biology course, for example, students are analyzing blood samples — which involves calculus equations — to solve mock legal disputes. Sarah Peacock, a Northeastern University biology professor, designed the curriculum, and it’s being taught by a Boston public school teacher.
“The idea is to promote calculus and show them how they can affect other fields,” Veetel says.
This year’s summer program wraps up on Aug. 8 with a closing ceremony at the Cabral Center, where students will present their final projects.