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Skill Building Deck

A slide deck of exercises to build CS and decoding skills

Why Model?

A paper describing the author's reasons why modeling is essential to science.

Penny Growth

Penny growth is a table-top hands-on activity in which students grow penny colonies based on simple rules. Through this activity and a corresponding computer model, students gain experience with modeling population growth, plotting data, and recognizing patterns. Different sized environments can be used to prompt a discussion of limits to growth fo the colonies.

Battle of the Agents

A take on the classic board game Battleship, this paper and pencil activity is a fun way to help students understand the use of x and y coordinates in StarLogo Nova. After the activity, students can use the StarLogo Nova model to experiment with x and y locations in a game-like context.

What are the chances?

An off-line activity to introduce students to concepts of randomness and how to program percent chance using a slider in StarLogo Nova.

Scavenger Hunt for Teachers

This scavenger hunt asks teachers to locate various Project GUTS resources. A fun tool to increase familiarity with Project GUTS and what's available.

Understanding by Design

Understanding by Design (UbD) curriculum offers a 3-stage “backward design” framework for developing units of study. The same process guides larger-scale curriculum development for courses and
programs (macro level). The UbD curriculum structure for building a coherent curriculum spirals around “big ideas,” essential questions, and core assessments.

BCSC 5e Instructional Model

BSCS (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study) paper explaining the 5e instructional model. The model describes a teaching sequence that can be used for entire programs, specific units, and individual lessons. The BSCS 5E Instructional Model plays a significant role in the curriculum development process as well as the enactment of curricular materials in science classrooms.

Guía de estudiantes para la actividad "Dados y datos" (Dice & Data)

Esta es la hoja de actividad para los estudiantes para "Dados y datos", una actividad de probabilidad. La probabilidad juega un rol importante en los modelos de sistemas complejos adaptativos. En esta actividad se programan agentes para imitar el movimiento de criaturas en el mundo real. También eventos aleatorios que ocurren cuando los agentes interactúen como por ejemplo contagiar una persona a otra.

What's Represented?

These exercises ask the learner to identify abstractions in the computer model as compared to a diagram or image of a natural phenomenon.

Workshop Planning Guide

A list of factors to consider for facilitators and school districts or partner organizations in planning a workshop.

Tips for Facilitators

Suggestions on best practices for teaching Project GUTS lessons, by acting as a facilitator to student learning, rather than a lecturer on your known content.

Emergence video

A portion of a PBS NOVA video discussing the concept of emergence (or complex adaptive systems) where patterns emerge in nature where agents follow simple rules.

Dice and Data (see also CS in Science, Module 1)

Dice and data is a hands-on activity in which students learn about probability and how probability is used in modeling and simulation. Students first investigate single dice rolls and connect the results to randomness, then students investigate two die rolls and learn how the results of two-die rolls are used to mimic animal movement in a wiggle walk.

The Greenhouse Effect

A short video on the basics of the greenhouse effect, used in CS in Science, Module 2 (Greenhouse gas model).

Introduction to Climate Modeling

This document gives background information for students to use with CS in Science Module 5 (Greenhouse Gas).

Papercatchers

Papercatchers is a participatory simulation in which students learn about population growth and limits to growth. Students play the role of members of a growing population, follow simple rules governing survival and reproduction, and collect and graph data.

Swords and Shields variations