Flower Power – Sunflowers as a Model for Logistic Growth
Logistic growth displays an interesting pattern: It starts fast, exhibiting the rapid growth characteristic of exponential models. As time passes, it slows in response to constraints such as limited resources or reallocation of energy (see fig. 1). The growth continues to slow until it reaches a limit, called capacity. When the growth describes a population, capacity is defined as “the maximum population that the environment is capable of sustaining in the long run” (Stewart 2008, p. 628).
Contributor Notes
Eileen FernÁNdez, fernandeze@mail.montclair.edu, is an associate professor of mathematics education at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She is designing an online mathematics course.
