Texas Instruments: Numb3 Rs: Close Encounters

Based off of the hit television show NUMB3RS, this lesson has students explore how "closely connected" a network structure is. Framed in the context of a terrorist cell, students must find which setups would allow organizations to still function well, even with one "group" (node) removed. Students will learn about connectivity, and as an extension, will focus on weighted graphs as well (as opposed to simple graphs where one edge accounts for one unit of length).