Integrated Study of Natural Resources, Human Impact, and Environmental Policy: Making Complex Systems Accessible for Secondary Learners

本提案探讨了“基于主体的模型”的潜力，以帮助学习者掌握即将到来的大学先修课程考试标准中针对的环境科学概念。它还将帮助学习者更好地理解复杂系统，并改变他们对使用科学模型的态度。研究人员在一个“绿色”基础设施与城市环境相结合的模拟场景中构建了研究框架，他们提出了如何使用一种新的用户界面策略（“纸到参数”），该策略承诺了理解模拟元素之间空间和标量关系的独特方法。该项目将开发一种评估工具，以了解不同人群（高中生、本科生、研究生和专家）的学习者先前的理解和态度；开展基于agent的学习干预的探索性试验，探讨其对大学生认知和态度的影响；并将研究选择的用户界面特征如何促进特定的空间和标量理解。评估将使研究人员能够描述具有不同专业知识水平的人群的理解和态度，并将为衡量干预措施的实际影响和为未来干预措施的设计提供信息提供基线。探索性课程和有针对性的实验将探索基于计算机的工具的特定功能与学习者对选定的AP环境科学和复杂系统概念的理解变化之间的联系，以及学习者对模型的态度。

This proposal explores the potential of "Agent-Based Models" to assist learners to acquire environmental science concepts targeted in forthcoming Advanced Placement test standards. It will also help learners acquire a better understanding of complex systems and to shift their attitudes towards the use of scientific models. The investigators frame the research in a simulated scenario where "green" infrastructure is integrated into urban environments, and they propose how to use a new user interface strategy ("Paper-to-Parameters") that promises unique approaches for understanding the spatial and scalar relationships between simulation elements. The project will develop an assessment tool to obtain a picture of prior understandings and attitudes held by learners in different populations (high school, undergraduate, and graduate students and experts); it will conduct an exploratory trial of the Agent-Based learning intervention to investigate the impacts on cognition and attitudes of undergraduate students; and will investigate how selected user interface features facilitate specific spatial and scalar understandings.The assessment will allow the investigators to describe understanding and attitudes across populations with differing levels of expertise and will provide a baseline for measuring the real impact of the intervention and informing the design of future interventions. The exploratory lesson and targeted experiments will explore the connection between specific features of the computer-based tool and changes in learner understanding of selected AP Environmental Science and complex system concepts, and in learner attitudes towards models.