IA ideas · for IB Biology students
Maths IA ideas for biology students
If you take IB Biology, you already think about growth, populations, disease and variation, and all of them are mathematical. Bacteria double, populations level off, epidemics follow differential equations, leaves and ferns have measurable fractal structure, and capture–recapture estimates a population you can't count directly.
The ideas below keep the mathematics in front: deriving a model, fitting it, testing it and reflecting on where it fails. Biology supplies the question and the data; the Maths IA is assessed only on the mathematics.
Accessible (4)
- Estimating the area of a leaf with random pointsAA SLAI SLAA HLAI HLAccessible
- How does bread dough rise? A logistic model in the kitchenAA SLAA HLAI SLAI HLAccessible
- Can height predict lung capacity?AI SLAI HLAA SLAccessible
- How fast does my heart rate recover after exercise?AA SLAI SLAA HLAI HLAccessible
Solid (11)
- Modelling bacterial growth in the biology labAA SLAA HLAI SLAI HLSolid
- A positive test result: how likely is it that you really have the condition?AA HLAA SLAI SLAI HLSolid
- How much vaccination is enough to stop measles?AI SLAI HLAA SLSolid
- Why do sunflower seeds form spirals? The golden angleAA SLAA HLAI SLAI HLSolid
- How fractal is a fern? Box-counting dimension from photographsAI SLAA SLAI HLAA HLSolid
- Counting a hidden population: capture–recapture at schoolAI SLAA SLAI HLAA HLSolid
- How do doctors estimate your skin area? Comparing body-surface-area formulasAA SLAA HLAI SLAI HLSolid
- Is BMI's “height squared” right? Evidence from OlympiansAI SLAI HLAA SLAA HLSolid
- Does caffeine build up if you drink coffee every few hours?AA SLAA HLAI SLAI HLSolid
- How fast did COVID-19 spread at the start? Comparing doubling timesAA SLAA HLAI SLAI HLSolid
- Can you predict a tree's height from its trunk?AI SLAI HLAA SLSolid
Ambitious (3)
More in this area: all health, biology & medicine IA ideas · fractals & chaos · simulation & monte carlo methods · matrices, transformations & markov chains. Thinking of using the same topic or data as another IA? Check your school's policy and ask both teachers first.
Frequently asked questions
Can my Maths IA be about biology?
Yes. Any context is allowed as long as the exploration is assessed on its mathematics: models, statistics or probability, used correctly and reflected on. Many strong IAs use a biological question.
Can I use the data from my Biology IA in my Maths IA?
Check your school's policy and ask both teachers first. Even where it is allowed, the two pieces must be different work with different questions and analysis; you cannot reuse text or analysis between them.
Which biology Maths IA ideas suit HL?
Ideas built on differential equations (epidemics, predator–prey, drug doses) or matrices (Leslie population models) give HL mathematics real work to do.
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