Maturity and citizenship in a democracy require that laypersons are able to critically evaluate experts' use of mathematics. Learning to critically reflect on the use of mathematics, including the acquisition of the mathematical knowledge and skills required to that end, has been repeatedly postulated as an indispensable goal of compulsory…

In March 2020, near the onset of the COVID-19 related lockdowns, quarantine, and isolation measures being taken worldwide, we noticed an increasing number of graphs, diagrams, images and mathematical models relating to the pandemic posted on our Facebook walls. For the purposes of this paper, we selected a number of these Facebook posts to discuss…

In this article, I present the eighteenth century's polemic of Bernoulli and d'Alembert concerning the smallpox epidemic and a prevention method called inoculation. Through an analysis of the polemic and the related resources, I show that this historical debate has various interests for mathematics education; and more specifically it can help…