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Skill Building Deck

A slide deck of exercises to build CS and decoding skills

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.

Social Networks for StarLogo TNG

How are people connected?  Humans are inherently social and have relationships far more complex than the random encounters often seen in agent-based modeling. These relationships can vary in strength and meaning – we see social networks that range from kinship networks, friendship networks to contact networks used in the study of epidemiology. The primary goal of this unit is to engage students in simple interactive activities to explore social network concepts and to model those concepts.

Sustainability for StarLogo Nova

In this unit students will learn about issues relating to becoming a sustainable community, including recycling materials and turning waste into energy. Important concepts include: feedback loops in systems and ideas relating to cooperation in society.

Middle school students will learn about sustainability concepts using videos and activities to map their community. Their computer models can build off of either of two base models: consumerism or wastewater.

Opinion Dynamics with StarLogo TNG

Does Your Opinion Count? 
People form opinions on topics from current styles to political issues to product preferences, and often our opinions are based on information from others, rather than on our own experience. In this unit, we explore Opinion Dynamics as an aspect of human society that can be studied as a complex adaptive system. Here, agents representing humans can influence and be influenced by other agents both directly (one-on-one) and on a more global scale (advertising, etc).

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.

Traffic Patterns for StarLogo TNG

Why do traffic jams form?

Each year the number of paved miles grows by roughly 20,000 miles. When traffic gets too congested, traffic engineers must consider changes to existing roads or intersections. This unit engages students in interactive activities to explore pattern formation in complex systems, and in the use, modification, and creation of agent-based models to conduct experiments on simple virtual traffic systems, to study whether proposed road changes will the desired effect.

Archived Material: CS in Science Module 4 Chemical Reactions for StarLogo Nova 1.0 (Flash version)

Archived Material: CS in Science Module 4: Chemical Reactions for StarLogo Nova 1.0 (Flash version, updated 2015). This Physical Science module explores chemical reactions: the conditions under which they occur, the evidence that a chemical reaction has taken place, limiting reactants versus reactants in excess, and when chemical reactions stop. The base model for this unit simulates the chemical reaction between silver nitrate and copper.

Prisoner's Dilemma (Tit for Tat)

A participatory simulation where partners examine strategies of cooperation versus individual gain. Based on the game theory activity of Prisoner's Dilemma, this activity introduces students to the contrast between theories of "Tragedy of the Commons" (individuals maximizing their own gain will result in collapse of the resources) and classic economic theory (maximum individual gain will lead to greatest efficiency).

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.

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.

Toss-Up

As a virus spreads through a community, epidemiologists might study how far a disease has spread, how quickly it spreads and how infectious it can be as well a numerous other pieces of data in order to understand the disease and its potential impact on a community. In this activity, students will simulate the spread of a virus such as the flu. Students will work in pairs to accumulate data using graph paper, a data chart, and a die. Before starting, groups will need to decide on three variables.

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.

Guides, Common Forms, and Activity Sheets for CS in Science Modules

This 56-page pdf includes printable copies of the Student Activity Guides, Common Forms, Blocks Guides, CS Concepts, and Progress Monitors for Modules 1-4 of CS in Science. This version was created in 2015, for StarLogo Nova 1.0. If using StarLogo Nova 2.0, search for the Blocks guides attached to each module.

CS in Science Module 4: Chemistry slide presentation

These are slide presentationsfor CS in Science Module 4: Chemical Reactions. Teachers can download and modify this presentation for classroom use. Be sure to select the correct link below, for StarLogo Nova 1.0 (flash version) or StarLogo Nova 2.0 (HTML5/JavaScript version).

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.

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.

Code Blocks for CS in Science Module 4 (Chemical Reactions)

Use this document while decoding the base model in CS in Science, Module 4: Chemical Reactions.
Select the relevant link below, depending on whether you are using StarLogo Nova 1.0 (flash version) or StarLogo Nova 2.0(HTML5/JavaScript version).

Shared Resources for StarLogo Nova

As the human population grows, it has become increasingly important to understand how humans are impacting the environment and to consider what resources we are using and how we are managing or not managing them for the future. In this unit we will be looking at a variety of different types of resources that are important to our area. Although the resources are different, they are interdependent, and way the humans manage these assets can be looked at in a similar fashion.