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Daisy world

A model demonstrating the albedo effect of black or white surfaces. Use as a part of the Climate Change and Agriculture Project GUTS Curricular Unit, or as a stand-alone model, activity, and video.

Battleship activity in StarLogo Nova

This activity uses the idea of the classic "battleship" game to review x and y coordinates in StarLogo Nova.  Students do a pen and paper simulation of the game, and then use a base model in StarLogo Nova to review the coordinates.

Geothermal Energy for StarLogo Nova

This unit was developed as a Project GUTS after-school club unit. Students learn about geology topics relating to hot springs with mineral deposits, as well as geothermal energy with hot water being heated underground and rising to the surface. Students decode a base model and add their own enhancements.

Sample poster

Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in StarLogo TNG

What do we know about climate change? This unit discusses climate change: what it means, what the difference is between climate and weather, and evidence of climate change. It also discusses the global climate system as a complex system with feedback loops, and the current state of the art in the computational modeling of climate change. Our goal is to clarify what is known, what scientists guess is happening, and how climate change impacts our environment and species.

Fall Introductory Unit for Project GUTS after-school clubs

The Project GUTS after-school clubs were structured to have 10-12 week units in the Fall and Spring Semesters, with a 4-6 weeks Introduction to StarLogo Nova and computer science concepts, followed by a 4-6 week content unit. This is the curriculum page for the Fall Semester Unit introductory weeks. It assumes students are new to Project GUTS and to StarLogo Nova. If you have repeating students, see the Resources Link to Other activities to Introduce Project GUTS for additional ideas.

What are the chances?

This activity to explore randomness and how to program percent chance in StarLogo Nova.

Random Walks with code blocks for StarLogo Nova

Modeling the movement of agents (people,molecules, cars or ideas) is an important part of modeling systems. Different agents will have varying amount of randomness in their “walks” which can have an impact on systems. In this activity, students will apply the concept of randomness to a simple StarLogo program in which the agents will use ‘random’ blocks to ‘wiggle’ as they move around SpaceLand. This programming activity follows the ‘What are the Chances?" activity.

Math Challenges in StarLogo TNG

This activity reviews the use of angles, heading, x, y, and z coordinates, and random ranges in StarLogo TNG. It corresponds to the coding challenges for StarLogo Nova (see related link). .

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.

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.

Introduction to Computational Science

This video was produced by Project GUTS and Code.org to introduce computational science.

Computational Thinking

This video introduces computational thinking. It was produced by Project GUTS with Code.org.

Dispositions and Classroom Culture

In this video, GUTS teachers talk about instilling dispositions and classroom culture that supports scientific inquiry and the development of computational thinking.

Computational science project rubric

This rubric is based on one used by the Supercomputing Challenge for judging student projects and presentations during competition.

Archived Material: CS in Science Module 2: Water as a Shared Resource (for StarLogo Nova 1.0)

Archived material for CS in Science: Module 2 for StarLogo Nova 1.0 (flash version, updated in 2015). In this module, students will investigate the importance of ground water and the impacts of water usage on aquifer levels. They will also explore how to model important parts of the water cycle, including evaporation and infiltration of water into different types of soils to recharge the aquifers.

Computational Thinking Resources

The attached documents can provide background information for teachers on Computational Thinking.

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.

El Juego de la pesca (La Tragedia de los Comunes)

El Juego de la Pesca utiliza el concepto de Tragedia de los Comunes (Hardin, 1968) para trabajar sobre sustentabilidad. El jugador (pescador) tiene 10 días para atrapar tantos peces como pueda para alimentar a su familia. Cada día, el pescador puede elegir pescar uno, dos o tres peces, o no pescar ninguno. Hay otros dos pescadores que también tratan de capturar tantos peces como puedan. El lago en el que se pesca sólo puede soportar 20 peces (que es la capacidad de carga del lago).

Emergency Egress for StarLogo TNG

In the case of fire, how do we plan for safe exit? After learning how a fire marshall evaluates buildings for safety, students model how people would exit a building in the event of an emergency. Are more exits needed? Can everyone get out safely? This unit engages students in interactive activities to explore human behavior during emergencies and egress concepts, and in the use, modification, and creation of agent-based models to conduct experiments on simple emergency egress situations.