An alternative use of the NetLogo modeling environment, where the student thinks and acts like an Agent, in order to teach concepts of Ecology

TL;DR

This paper explores an innovative approach to teaching ecology by having students act as agents within the NetLogo environment, promoting deeper understanding without requiring programming skills.

Contribution

It introduces a method where learners interact with ecological models as agents, enhancing engagement and understanding without coding, demonstrated through a study with university students.

Findings

Encouraging results from student interactions suggest improved ecological understanding.

The networked agent setup allows students to observe collective ecosystem responses.

The approach opens new research avenues in NetLogo-based ecological education.

Abstract

The Multi Agent Based programming, modeling and simulation environment of NetLogo has been used extensively during the last fifteen years for educational among other purposes. The learning subject, upon interacting with the Users Interface of NetLogo, can easily study properties of the simulated natural systems, as well as observe the latters response, when altering their parameters. In this research, NetLogo was used under the perspective that the learning subject (student or prospective teacher)interacts with the model in a deeper way, obtaining the role of an agent. This is not achieved by obliging the learner to program (write NetLogo code) but by interviewing them, together with applying the choices that they make on the model. The scheme was carried out, as part of a broader research, with interviews, and web page like interface menu selections, in a sample of 17 University students in Athens (prospective Primary School teachers) and the results were judged as encouraging. At a further stage, the computers were set as a network, where all the agents performed together. In this way the learners could watch onscreen the overall outcome of their choices and actions on the modeled ecosystem. This seems to open a new, small, area of research in NetLogo educational applications.