In the fall of 2024, Citizen Math released updated versions of every lesson in our library, plus a few new ones! We know you may have already prepped an earlier version or planned a repeat of last year, so we're continuing to make these earlier versions available through Thursday December 5, 2024.
You can find the new lessons through the regular search, and we hope you love them as much as we do. You can read more about these updates in Our Community.
Click here for the updated version of this lesson!
Why are so many Americans dying from opiate overdoses? Across the United States, families and communities have been devastated by opiate addiction. A patient breaks her arm and receives a powerful pain reliever such as Oxy-Contin, then ends up addicted to heroin or even fentanyl.
In this lesson, students use exponential decay and rational functions to understand why addicted patients seek more and stronger opioids to alleviate their pain. Students discuss the role that various parties played in creating the crisis and ways they can help to solve it.
