Education Services Australia - Algebraic Thinking and Financial Modelling

Education Services Australia (ESA) is a national not-for-profit company owned by Australian education ministers. ESA engaged Punchy Studio to create a second educational video for the Math Hub series, this time focusing on the communication challenge of applying algebraic thinking to real world financial modelling. The brief was to demonstrate how linear equations and graphing can be used to compare costs and solve everyday dilemmas, such as splitting a taxi fare. We produced a clear animated explainer video that follows three friends as they compare two different taxi rates using algebraic expressions and a coordinate graph. Our approach focused on practical application, showing how to simplify complex problems like fair cost sharing by using variables to represent distance and individual portions of a trip. The video is deployed on the ESA Math Hub portal as a teaching resource to help students understand the functional use of mathematics in life. By combining professional scripting, custom animation, and an instructional voiceover, we effectively showed how algebraic modelling provides logical solutions to social and financial questions. Detailed motion graphics reinforce the learning objectives by visually displaying the step by step process of solving equations and interpreting linear graphs.