About 

About School

The host institution: Department of Mathematics, University of Ghana, Legon Accra, Ghana.


Expected date: 16th – 30th August 2023


Duration: 2 weeks


Targeted students: Master students and early Ph.D. students


Number of participants expected: 40

Local participants – 25

Regional participants - 15

Expected proportion of Female students – 30%

Complex biological systems from conservation, ecology, and epidemiology require quantitative approaches from mathematical models to have solutions with comprehensive and meaningful interpretations.  Mathematical models and their qualitative and quantitative analyses enable us to examine different situations and outcomes that are costly, difficult, and/or impossible to get experimentally. Differential equations have frequently played a central role in describing complex biological phenomena which change over time.  Despite significant achievements in the development of new modeling approaches to address applied needs, there are still many open issues that demand urgent and innovative solutions. Hence, justifying the need to train the young generation of researchers in this area so that the advancement of the study of both deterministic and stochastic models can occur.  During this training school, we will examine recent advances and insight from mathematical modeling problems applied to these complex biological systems and the study of their dynamical properties.  Hence, our aim in this school is to introduce students to mathematical modeling in conservation, ecology, and epidemiology using differential equations.  Participating students will learn the construction, analyses, and simulation of these models and the meaningful interpretation of the results.  This school will cover basic dynamical analysis, some theoretical and numerical methods for solving differential equations using Octave and R, and model validation via data assimilation.  At the end of the course, students will be able to pose relevant biological problems in the context of conservation, ecology, and epidemiology using mathematics.


At the end of this school, participants will:


Project goal and aim

Pedagogical Framework  

This summer school is fortunate to have highly experienced resource fellows who have developed a plethora of excellent research and teaching practices during their careers. This school draws upon a variety of pedagogical approaches, a wealth of research, a wide range of experience to help guide our teaching and learning approaches to achieving the set individual learning goals.

Our pedagogical framework reflects the following systemic principles

Student-centered planning 

Student self-evaluation

We will audit student background knowledge and experiences by carrying out at the beginning of the school; a student-focused self-evaluation survey. This survey will ask the student their competence level and expectation for the program.  Numbers that only students know will be assigned to the individual students in order to make the survey anonymous.

Homework program

Exercises and homework will be assigned at the end of each lecture.  It is used as an important teaching and revision strategy. Tutorials will also be organized to further help the students in achieving our set learning goals in each module and overall school goals.  There are eight graduate assistants to assist with the tutorials.


Student groupings

Students will be put into groups according to their research interests, and each group will have a mentor selected among the instructors that best matches students learning expectations/ background

High expectations

High-order thinking/activities

A range of activities will be included in each class program to ensure the development of HOT skills. The students will be assigned mini-projects, and they will be engaged in a mini-field study. These projects will be designed in such a way that a reasonable part of it will be completed during the duration of the school and the rest is completed after the program ended to ensure continued collaboration between the students and the resources fellows. 

Targeted and scaffolded instruction

Available technology

The University of Ghana is well-resourced with the latest digital technology resources (laptops, projectors, wireless networks, and the internet).  These resources will be fully utilized by students.

Safe, supportive, connected, and inclusive learning environments

Student Self Evaluation 

A student-focused self-evaluation survey will be carried out at the end of the program and students will be able to compare “their before and their now” regarding knowledge gained during the summer school. 

Mechanisms of evaluations