The adaptive system I’d choose is groundwater availability. Agents would include, human population/proliferation of wells and recharge due to precipitation. Interaction: depletion of groundwater due to population growth and drought, recharge of water due to precipitation and infiltration.
The phenomenon I am choosing is the predator prey relationship in an ecosystem.Agents and and the environment would be included. the agents would be fish, kelp , and shark. the environment would be the ocean.
I think that I’d like to view the potential impact of an epidemic on different populations. For example, how might the disease spread on a larger, spread out population vs. a smaller more concentrated population. I’d also like to see how different geographical features impact it’s spread.
The complex adaptive system i chose was using test cars to measure and identify the forces involved in car collisions. The agents in this case would be the automobile and “dummies” being tested. The environment would be the test track, the velocity, forces involved, the barriers, and other automobiles acting as barriers. The interaction between the agents and environment are the collisions and the impact of the forces exterted based on the velocity of the agents.
The complex adaptive system I chose was the freeway system of a large city during commute time. The question I thought would be interesting was “In what ways does a single vehicle’s behavior or a single event affect the movement of all vehicles on a freeway?”. The agents would be the cars, trucks, and busses on a freeway. The environment would be the freeway, the on-ramps and off-ramps, the connecting roads, etc. The interactions between the agents would include accidents, changes in speed, and traffic jams.
Interesting. Last year, I had my students draw diagrams of these Laws. I realized it’s totally unrealistic - where’s the movement and the interactions? Modeling would create a much better understanding of the actual events.
I would use it to model the concept of density. The agents are water, corn syrup, corn oil and baby oil as well as cork and a piece of a wax candle. The environment is a beaker and the interactions are varying positions of the liquids and solids due to the differing density of each material. My students test this in class and make real life connections such as how do boats float, boats oil spills…
I addition of investigating the density of liquids, students can also investigate which shapes displace more liquid.
Earths energy budget could be an example of an complex adaptive system;
Agents being the energy input, absorption agents (dark, non-reflective surfaces that convert short wavelength to long wavelength) reflective agents (clouds/ice albedo) and absorption/reflective surfaces that block only certain wavelengths (Greenhouse gases). The environment is the atmosphere and the interactions are briefly described in the parentheses above.
I am by no means a Science teacher or have background teaching Science except for at the primary level but I would have to say something that would relate to the grades I teach would be weather and the changing atmosphere for the different types of weather we see.
Great Ideas!!! I would still like to use my virus example…
The agents would be the viruses, white blood cells, and the human genetics (susceptibility to infect).
The environment of course would have to be a particular infection and course of action by the body.
There are many possibilities as to the different interactions between each of the agents.
LOTS OF LEARNING INDEED!!! & FUN!!!
In the Energy and the Environment unit I teach to my 7th graders, we study the effects of different aspects of windmill blades on the efficiency of the windmill. I can see this approach being used to assist the students in organizing their thoughts and ideas. The agents would be different for each group and include variables such as size, shape, material, and length. The environment could be a set constant or could be a variable such as off-shore, on the great plains, or in a mountainous area. I would suggest keeping all agents but one constant, but that could change between each group of students.
I like the one the lady described in the video as it aligns perfectly with our curriculum. If I had to choose another topic I would choose diseases as populations being vulnerable to disease is a component of our curriculum. The agents would be the species and the disease chosen. The environment would a town-potentially town meeting where many people are gathered. The agents would interact and as each person came in contact the infected person the disease would spread.
I would be interested in looking at declining populations of some starfish in the Puget Sound. This question would be a topic of local importance and fit well with our discussions of populations and ecosystems. Our agents for this simulation would include starfish, sea urchin, and kelp beds. Teams of students could each be given the task of manipulating one agent and analyzing the resulting data.
This would be a great system to model. Students could manipulate humidity, wind, pressure, even land type.
A major focus in my curriculum is the local deer population. When my students go to Outdoor School, they learn how to use random sampling to figure out the exact population of deer in a local park. The leaders explain how the population has grown because of a lack of predators, and how the overpopulation of deer harms the rest of the ecosystem. I think it would be really meaningful to take the data from the field trip and put it in a simulation. The agents would be the deer, their natural predators, vegetation, and other animals that eat the same things the deer eat. The environment would be the park ecosystem. Students would remove the natural predators and see how the deer population skyrockets and the vegetation suffers.
The system I would like my students to model would be the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The agents would be wetlands, crabs, and humans. The interactions would be between the humans and the environment and crab population. We would run several trials of increasing human population to see what the effect would be on the wetlands and crab population.
When I teach about adaptations, the students learn about animals on the Galapagos Islands and how environmental factors are the cause for many adaptations in that area. This would be a great use for the agent based modeling. The agents would be the animals and food sources and even different environmental factors such as droughts or floods.
The energy cycle in an ecosystem is a great example of how the simple change of an agent affects the entire eco-system. Students would be able to run various scenarios by manipulating the number of animals and elements of vegetation. More interesting, and in conjunction withe the student’s study of the Chesapeake Bay, would be to introduce a foreign aquatic plant of fish and see the effects. Currently in the fresh water tributaries leading to the the Bay fishermen have caught “frankenfish.” It is believed to be a product of a local fish and a fish from China. Students would be able to simulate the effects of introducing an non-native species to an ecosystem.
I’m not sure if this would work, but I’d be interested in seeing if there was a way to model “Tragedy of the Commons.” There are games that can be played to help students understand the concept, but having them model self-serving behavior vs. management/cooperation would be a great lesson in resource use but in understanding everyday behavior. (I found students using the term when they would find desks with markings, computers with keys missing, etc.) It would also be of value to see the solutions as well as the problems we face. (Otherwise, it gets down-right depressing!)