Investigation of bacterial growth provides excellent possibilities to combine laboratory exercises, mathematical modeling and model-based data analysis. The aim of the tasks designed focused on the representation, identi cation and analyses of the di erent phases (variations of the growth rate) in a bacterial growth (lag, acceleration, exponential, retardation, stationary and decline) by means of two modeling methodologies, ordinary di erential equations and individual-based simulations. The students had the opportunity to investigate the growth of a bacterial population from two di erent perspectives, a continuous and deterministic model versus a discrete and stochastic model, which enriched the process of connecting mathematics with the study of life systems.

Peer Reviewed