Sandra Stark's List: Models and simulations

These 5 interactive lab activities span several units, but tie together their common concepts. You may explore functional simulations or do field activities that are tied to the content of related units.

Please Note: Units 6, 8, and 11 do not have an Interactive lab.

Click on the EXSYS systems below to run a few examples illustrating many of the features and capabilities of Exsys Corvid. Some can be run either using the Exsys CORVID Servlet Runtime or as a Java Applet to see the difference in end user interface.

Sodaconstructor is a construction kit for interactive creations using masses and springs.
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By altering physical properties like gravity, friction, and speed, curiously anthropomorphic models can be made to walk, climb, wriggle, jiggle, or collapse into a writhing heap.

Good overview of military use of simulations and computer game software. Lots of specific examples, can stimulate further research.

Imagine you lived in a world of water. Your home is two-feet under. You wade through it, cook on it, and sleep above it. This is the reality for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, coastal populations on the front lines of climate change.

Only weeks before world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss climate change, NOW senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa travels to Bangladesh to examine some innovative solutions—from floating schools to rice that can "hold its breath" underwater—being implemented in a country where entire communities are inundated by water, battered by cyclones, and flooded from their homes.

This visualization shows the collapse of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, part of Washingtons State Route 99, and adjacent seawall due to a seismic event. The simulated earthquake is similar to the 2001 Nisqually earthquake but lasts longer, is closer to Seattle, or has a slightly greater magnitude.\n

As monsoons and cyclones worsen due to climate change in the South Asian country, many coastal peoples are migrating to drier cities.

Interactive credit card simulation. Easy to use.

This transparent reality simulation represents what happens when dry cooled air is forced in channels placed between the body and the football pad.

Computer generated time-lapse of the Stonehenge site over a 500 year period, proposing the order and sequence of its construction all the way to its eventual decay after 1900BC.

To illustrate the use of virtual reality technology as a developmental tool.

Satellite technology has enabled us to understand the importance of the oceans in storing heat energy and regulating climate. Research scientist Lee Lueng-Fu explains how a satellite was able to track the development of the El Nino affect for the first time. El Nino caused weather events around the world - droughts, bushfires, storms. The latest generation of satellites are now used to improve climate change models. Computer graphics of satellite images show effects of climate change.

The history of weather forecasting and early satellite programmes is told using archive film, highlighting the difficulties associated with a lack of weather data. 200 dedicated weather satellites have been launched since the 1960's. Together, these satellites enable us to monitor every weather system around the world and to see the weather as it approaches. Interview with meteorologist Ewen McCallam who is using a sequence of satellite images to identify a warm front, he goes on to describe how geostationary and polar orbiting satellites are used. Weather prediction can save lives, especially in tropical regions as information from satellites is used to track hurricanes as they develop. Computer models are shown following a storm over Africa developing into a hurricane over the Caribbean.

Could be used to kickstart a discussion on the pros and cons of the Bangladesh floods.

Use as an introduction to weather in India. Compare and contrast to the weather in the UK.