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Modeling Your World 2009
Shodor > SUCCEED > Workshops > Archive > Modeling Your World 2009

Today, the students learned about NetLogo, a modeling program that can be downloaded for free. They started out by investigating the Sheep and Wolves Predation Model that is in the NetLogo models library. It is a basic model in which there are agents representing wolves and sheep. The model demonstrates the effects of predator and prey populations on each other. With this model they learned the basic concepts of a NetLogo model. They then opened up the Rabbis, Grass and Weeds model and started to learn how to use the NetLogo code. They used this model because of its relative simplicity compared to other models in the library. They altered the model in a few simple ways, like changing the color or shape of the agents. This got the students accustomed to the method of programming in NetLogo.

The students then made custom models in NetLogo. The model was a basic infection model, which made turtles change to the color of the turtle that touched them. The students got to choose how the agents in the model looked and the characteristics of those agents. Afterwards, they created an even more complex model in which the student interacted with an agent to simulate a game of Hot/Cold, with the model acting much like the real life activity itself.