Adventures in Modeling: Exploring Complex, Dynamic Systems with StarLogo

Have you ever wondered how birds flock or forest fires spread? For thousands of years people―from daVinci to Einstein―have created models to help them better understand patterns and processes in the world around them. Computers make it easier for novices to build and explore their own models―and learn new scientific ideas in the process. Adventures in Modeling introduces you and your students to designing, creating, and investigating models in StarLogo.

Using models to explore complex, dynamic systems or events (like predator/prey interactions or traffic jams) is a powerful learning experience. It can help you see the world in new ways and demonstrate how complex patterns can arise from many simple interactions. Modeling and simulation are finding a rapidly growing audience among teachers in middle and high school science and mathematics classes―especially since the NCTM and AAAS standards advocate their integration into the curriculum. This valuable resource:

• helps educators and their students learn to build their own models (not just use models constructed by others) even if they have no previous modeling or programming experience
• cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries, helping illuminate the connections among different sciences, social sciences, and mathematics
• combines computer activities with “in-the-world activities,” providing teachers and students with the best of both worlds
• introduces the study of “complex systems,” a field that has attracted great attention in the scientific community during the past decade
• provides explicit links to state and national math and science content standards

As computer use gains in currency and value in the middle and high school classroom, Adventures in Modeling will give teachers and students an effective way to build curiosity and boost learning outcomes in a standards-based curriculum.

This full-color book includes a CD-ROM with StarLogo and many fascinating classroom projects!

Vanessa Stevens Colella and Mitchel Resnick are at the MIT Media Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Eric Klopfer directs the Teacher Education Program at MIT.