Computer Science in Science PD: Introduction to Computational Science - Discussion

Computational Science will help solve real world problems, it could help with Ocean Exploration.

Computational Science let’s us go to places we can’t. It can help us show our students things they would never believe are possible. We already use models in Science this will let us do even more!

I think that this would be useful in determining the potential impact of an invasive species within an ecosystem.

Computational science is different from the science we studied in school. It has tremendous benefit when studying both positive and negative impacts on the spread of disease as just one example.

A great thought and so true. To be able to see the effect of a large number of items as discussed in the video can help make the problem much more authentic for students and will certainly have the capability to spark their interest as they begin to study relative issues within our society.

I think it would be neat to do a computational study in cooperation with a language arts study of dystopian societies. The study could show the long term effects of the efforts of perfection in each of the engineered societies. I.E. the practice of breeding for perfection in The Giver.

Computational Science simulates real life situations.

I think being able to use a computer to model something that would be too expensive to build is AWESOME!! My students created air powered cars (mainly by balloons) and changed their models three times by revising their design. It was too expensive to buy all the supplies, but a computer model could show them what they may see before even building it. Great idea!!!

Computational science allows for a better understanding of a topic that is being investigated in the classroom. Allowing students to use the real world materials and programs to inquire, investigate, and understand a problem or situation and arrive at an explanation would be inspiring, to say the least. When I was in middle school we did not even have computers to work on:(

This would be great for showing the population dynamics in a food web.

Computational Science makes topics or investigations seem less abstract. Would be a great simulation in understanding planets and the universe as well.

Yes, I agree. Makes things seem less abstract a great visual for the students.

Computational Science makes science experiments and investigations more imaginable, and allows for a more real life connection and creativity to the experiment.

Computer science helps create models of hurricane paths that help alert communities saving thousands of lives. Computer models make it possible to get the information quickly and not to wait for disaster to hit.

An experiment we could do in class would simulate rain forest destruction and how/where rain forest residents (animals or humans) would relocate. Since this is a real world problem, how are the habitants of the Brazilian rain forest reacting to the problem now, and is this solution succeeding or failing.

With Computational Science the World becomes the lab.
It would be great to “see” shark or other marine life migrations, and bird migrations.

That would be great. I don’t know the technological needs or requirements to do so.

Computational Science allows me to use a model to predict data; I’ve done so in a fruit-fly experiment with great success.

As someone who does not have a huge science background and just learning about computational Science. I am excited to learn and see this technology in action.

Computational science would allow scientists to experiment with things that might cause harm to people. I liked the example of the fire spread from the video. My other thoughts would be the same as others I’ve seen - disease spread through a group of people. I also think you could experiment with construction materials to see how fire would spread through buildings/structures.