Polynomial Models of Biological Growth

Courses in calculus have routinely covered applications not only for their own sake but also in response to the students' most frequent question: What's this stuff good for? In the past, most applications centered on physical or engineering problems. Recently an increasing number of students interested in the life and environmental sciences have been enrolling in calculus. Among the applications that appeal to such students, a favorite is single species population modeling, the subject of this paper.