What is a limit? Concept image of limits as time goes to infinity in life sciences students

Math is scary. For life science students, maths is even scarier. Poor results in mathematics are amongst the main reasons for dropping out of STEM courses, particularly in life sciences — negative attitudes and disengagement being the main reasons for students’ failure. In the absence of exogenous instrumentality — e.g., a good grade in calculus as a prerequisite to enter medical school — we should strive to engage students with active learning that could at least pretend to carry intrinsic motivations (Husman & al., 2004). Or, in other words, we want students to work on tasks that appear to be relevant (to them!) in order to build a conceptual understanding of the mathematical objects at stake.