The Modeling Your World class began today by finishing up the population model Chris had started yesterday. The students reviewed what they had done yesterday. They discussed how they could make the model better. The students then figured out how to make the death rate related to the population. By doing things like this they could make the graph more accurate. The students then tried accounting for natural disasters by increasing the death rate.
After they were done with the population model, they modeled water. The students came up with the water cycle. The students then did an interactive internet activity. The model showed a scaled-down model of the Earth's water cycle. The students experimented with all the variables. They started STELLA, beginning by making a 'flow'. After this was complete, they started setting their variables. The students then began trying to re-create real life situations. The students then observed an example involving kool-aid, where mixing kool-aid was used as an example for what would happen to pollution in a stream that had some rapids. The students also did a hands-on activity to test how well asphalt and clay absorb rainfall and/or repel it by dumping water on them and observing where it went. They determined that the clay absorbed much more than the asphalt. The students then wrote down their guesses on the absorption of things like asphalt, woods, grass, residential areas, and gravel roads. They tested their hypotheses using an online model.
This concluded another wonderful day of the Modeling Your World class.