Find Resources

Massachusetts Institute of Technology video - image of birds flocking

Complex Adaptive Systems Modeling Video

Posted July 27, 2018 by turtle

This short video (3:13 minutes) introduces complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling concepts to middle-school students. It shows beautiful footage of birds flocking as an example of a complex adaptive system.

greenhouse video image

The Greenhouse Effect

Posted July 27, 2018 by sgibbs

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

Photo of coral from emergence video

Emergence video

Posted July 27, 2018 by sgibbs

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.

Hal playing the guitar

Interview with Hal Scheintaub

Posted August 2, 2017 by ilee

Teachers with GUTS interviewed Hal Scheintaub and demo of StarLogo Nova models created by his students on August 2, 2017.

Screen shot of StarLogo TNG model of Swords & Shields

Swords and Shields

Posted August 25, 2016 by turtle

Swords and Shields is an interactive simulation game which teaches students some of the basic ideas of complex adaptive systems. After playing, you can show the students a model of the game in StarLogo TNG or StarLogo Nova to discuss basic concepts of agent-based modeling. Try it, it's fun! See also the variation to this activity in Resources, and see the related activity of TryAngles.

screen shot of netlogo model from Project GUTS webpage collage

Social Networks for StarLogo TNG

Posted August 16, 2016 by turtle

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.

Search for "[keyword]" across the whole site.
If you can't find what you're looking for, send us a comment about what you were expecting to find.

Unless otherwise licensed, all works accessible here are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Teachers with GUTS is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.