Students in Melissa Williams' kindergarten class at the Westminster School in Atlanta, Georgia, practice connecting quantities to written numbers — a key part of number sense. Credit: Holly Korbey for ...

Math has a certain logic to it. If you use it to accurately describe a situation, sometimes you can predict the inevitable — for instance, the moment an eclipse will take place — centuries in advance.

You can probably think of a time when you’ve used math to solve an everyday problem, such as calculating a tip at a restaurant or determining the square footage of a room. But what role does math play ...