1. Exponential Growth and Decay Greg Kelly, Hanford High School, Richland, Washington Glacier National Park, Montana Photo by Vickie Kelly, 2004

2. Exponential Change: If the constant k is positive then the equation represents growth. If k is negative then the equation represents decay.

3. Population Growth In the spring, a bee population will grow according to an exponential model. Suppose that the population in the hive is estimated to be 25,000 bees on January 1 st and 47,000 bees on April 1 st. a) Find the growth constant, k, for the above model. Write a differential equation to model the population growth of the bees. b) Using the model in the above parts, estimate the population of bees on June 1 st.