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

这项建议探索了“基于主体的模式”的潜力，以帮助学习者在即将到来的高级选修考试标准中获得针对环境科学的概念。它还将帮助学习者更好地理解复杂系统，并转变他们对使用科学模型的态度。研究人员在一个模拟场景中进行了这项研究，其中“绿色”基础设施被整合到城市环境中，他们提出了如何使用一种新的用户界面策略(“纸张到参数”)，这种策略承诺采用独特的方法来理解模拟元素之间的空间和标量关系。该项目将开发一种评估工具，以获取不同人群(高中生、本科生、研究生和专家)对学习的先前理解和态度的图景；它将对基于代理的学习干预进行探索性试验，以调查对本科生认知和态度的影响；并将调查选定的用户界面特征如何促进特定的空间和标量理解。该评估将使调查人员能够描述不同专业水平的人群的理解和态度，并将为衡量干预的实际影响和为未来干预的设计提供参考。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具体特征与学习者对选定的AP环境科学和复杂系统概念的理解以及学习者对模型的态度之间的联系。

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.