One of my systems was the migration of bass in a lake or pond. The agents would be bass, baitfish, and aquatic plant life. The environment would be the body of water in which they live. The interactions would be baitfish eating and moving to find plant life. Their patterns would then influence the bass as they travel to follow the baitfish. The baitfish would eat the plants and the bass would eat the baitfish.
The agents would be the energy types.
The environment would be the situation you are measuring its efficiency, so maybe the output of heat. The interactions would be the difference in input vs output.
I would like to model invasive species in the Great Lakes. In particular I could model what happened as Asian Carp came up the river and what would happen if the Carp was able to get into Lake Michigan. You would be able to look at individual species and how they would be impacted by the Carp.
The agents of the hydrologic cycle complex adaptive system would be the consumers and policy-makers (of how the land is used). The environment is the troposphere and the Earth’s surface. The interactions would be between population growth, land-use, residential water use, ground water storage, and the weather patterns in a particular area.
Living in space has many effects on the human body. Maybe a complex adaptive system could be developed where the agents include muscle mass and microgravity over time.
The CAS I chose was molecular interactions in chemical reactions. The agents are the molecules involved in the reaction. The environment is where the reaction is taking place. The agents would interact with each other by exchanging atoms when they bump into each other. Depending on the type of reaction, they might interact with their environment by speeding up the rate of reaction when the temperature of the environment is increased, or slowing down when temperature is decreased.
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This would really bring the concept of hurricanes to life for our students in South Florida.
An interaction in an ecosystem would include the predator/prey example given in the video. In a forest ecosystem, the agents would be gray wolves, white-tailed deer and vegetation. When the deer agent encounters vegetation, it eats it. The vegetation will decrease, and the deer will gain energy. When the wolf agent comes in contact with the deer agent, it eats the deer causing the deer agents to decrease.
I think you could use Boyle’s and Charle’s Law. The agents would be the particles, heat. The environment would be the container (volume) and pressure of the container. As they interact, you could see the laws and the relationship between the variables.
I would model hurricanes and houses and how they would be affected by different categories of storms and how the areas would be affected.
I will need to stick with a fairly simple example of an ecosystem. It has been many years since I have taught science so my sample will need to focus on the process that is somewhat simple to keep it authentic as I learn the process.
This is an authentic sample of a real world issue. I think this will be a great way to introduce the process.
I liked the one in the example video. I selected to model predator and prey relationships and how those relationships impact the size of the population of each.
Agents: predator and prey.
Environment: ecosystem in which they live.
Interactions: prey disappears when in it becomes in contact with predator.
I would like to use this to model disease outbreaks for my Science Olympiad kids - I think this might be a great way for them to better understand the spread.
I think it would be interesting to model the growth and lack of growth of a volunteer organization given the 80/20 model of attendance. The agents would be the individuals already attending and the individuals trying it out for the first time. Those attending after the 80% capacity rule would turn away and find another capacity in which to volunteer.
The phenomenon I am choosing would be organisms’ abilities to adapt and survive environmental change. The agents might be salmon who are spawning. They must make it up stream, lay their eggs( overproduction) and then survive the life journey to reproduce in their lifetime. The environment would be the steam in which the salmon are using to provide transportation to the upstream area in which to lay their eggs. The interactions between the agents and the environment would include the natural predators who thrive on salmon eggs or salmon. The environmental changes in water temperatures or obstacles that prevent salmon from getting to lay their eggs upstream.
The complex system I have chosen is the rock cycle. The agents are weathering caused by wind, rain, gravity and/or temperature change. The environment is Earth’s surface and the interactions between these agents and Earth’s surface causes the different types of rocks.
This concept would be great to look at with out students because of how realistic this idea is for Florida.
Hurricanes/low pressure system formation and ocean water temperature.
Atlantic Ocean.
ALSO: Florida Panther populations.
ALSO: the spread of communicable diseases and humans.
The declining Florida Panther populations would be great to simulate.