Tools and Techniques for Starting a System Dynamics Program in Your School for Students in Grades 7 through 12

Abstract

The workshop will demonstrate a multi-faceted approach to the problem of starting a system dynamics program in a 7 to 12th grade school environment. Hands-on activities will be provided for the participants to help them understand what methods might work to influence teachers to try this experiment. Student work will be demonstrated. A presentation about the SyM*Bowl (student modeling) competition, how it is designed and executed, will be made. A Dual Platform CD containing training materials used in the National Science Foundation CC-STADUS/CC-SUSTAIN Project will be available (at no cost) for all participants. These materials have been developed over the 6-year history of the project, training high school and middle school math, science, and social studies teachers to create STELLA models and curricular materials to use in their classroom. The CD will also contain teacher created project modules that have been edited, as well as some sample student models and technical papers. The CD will contain a run-time version of STELLA for both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems, so that the models included on the disk can be used for demonstration easily by the participants.