Educational Simulation Case Studies
Subjects
By Discipline
General
STELLA
With its unique ability to stimulate learning, STELLA, the gold standard of systems thinking for education and research, offers features such as mapping and modeling; simulation and analysis; and communication. Both educators and researchers utilize STELLA to provide students a better ability to understand and communicate what they have learned.
Business
The Beer Game
Reducing total cost is the ultimate goal of The Beer Game. Developed by the MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation (The Forum), The Beer Game simulates supply chain management and teaches effective business strategy.
The EIS Simulation: The Change, IT Innovation and People Management Challenge
The EIS Simulation provides the ultimate decision-making, consensus-building, and team-building experience. Managers and executives are allocted up to six months simulated time to implement initiatives and change management tactics to overcome individual and organizational resistance.
Computer Science
Ultimate Fitness
A new health / fitness club, Ultimate Fitness, needs a website. This self-paced simulation (from twenty to thirty-two hours) requires the student, serving as chief web designer, to build a comprehensive, multi-page website from scratch. All necessary content, information, images, and instructions are provided.
Engineering
Modeling and Simulation of Dynamic Systems
This graduate-level course invovles modeling multi-domain engineering systems at a level of detail suitable for design and control system implementation. Topics include: network representation, state-space models, multi-port energy storage and dissipation, legendre transforms, nonlinear mechanics, transformation theory, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian forms, and control-relevant properties. Applications include: electro-mechanical transducers, mechanisms, electronics, fluid and thermal systems, compressible flow, chemical processes, diffusion, and wave transmission.
Re-Living the Wright Way
Created by NASA, this index explores the math and science, including physics and aviation principles and fundamentals, of the Wright Brothers' aircraft. Links are interactive - learn by exploring!
History
Crisis at Fort Sumter
Consider policy- and decision- making processes within the context of the Crisis at Fort Sumter. Place yourself in Abraham Lincoln's position, both as President-Elect and President, in the period between his election in November 1860 and the battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861. Assess information, calculate consequences, determine a course of action, and evaluate your decision.
Active History
Designed for middle and high schools, Active History allows students to 'interview' historical figures - questions are typed into and answers are generated from a complex database. Resources are continually updated.
The Western Front - Would you have made a good officer?
In 1915, the Western Front stretched from the coast of northern France and Belgium to the Swiss Alps. The Western Front simulation is designed to enhance students' understanding of warfare specifically during World War I.
Language studies
Tactical Language Project at CARTE (Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education): Rapid Development of Mission-Oriented Communication Skills
CARTE has developed a computer-based trainer that allows users to interact with on-screen characters representing "local people" using a speech recognition interface. The project is designed to develop and support individualized language learning, and in turn, the acquisition of tactical languages to accomplish specific missions.
Mathematics
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
Manipulatives and virtual learning are combined to achieve the same goal. Access a library of web-based virtual manipulatives / concept tutortials, mostly in the form of Java applets, for mathematics instruction. The project provides support to actively engage students with a K-12 emphasis.
Medicine
Audiogram
Built at San Jose State University's eCampus for nursing students, this Flash manipulable plays three individual voices as heard by children with three distinct types of hearing loss.
Immersion Medical
Revolutionizing the practice of medicine, medical simulations provide "hands-on" training opportunities, allowing for skill acquisition and competency assessment. Immersion Medical is the leader in surgical and medical simulation systems, and offers medical simulation systems on five platforms: endoscopy, endovascular, hysteroscopy, laparoscopy, and vascular access.
Painless
Learn about administering, adjusting, and monitoring pain medication by interactively caring for a post-op cancer patient.
Political Science
Model United Nations
The Model UN Headquarters presents an authentic simulation of the United Nations General Assembly and other multilateral bodies. The simulation promotes interest in international relations and related global issues, and increases problem solving, conflict resolution, research and communication, and compromise and cooperation capacities.
Centre for Middle East and North African Studies
In an extended role-playing game, Middle Eastern politics and the art of diplomacy are taught. Teams respond to a given scenario and attempt to further their interests; messages are sent via email, and negotiations are conducted during chat sessions.
Science
Biology Labs On-Line
Biology Labs On-Line (BLOL) develops and implements interactive biology activities on the internet. BLOL's virtual labs are designed to replace traditional "wet labs" and reinforce a scientific methodology. All labs are web-based and easily accessible.
Gas Law Simulation
This computer-based model of a molecular laboratory experiment was developed at Oklahoma State University. The simulation allows students to model lab experiments and demonstrates, in real-time, the dynamic effect of changing variables at the molecular level. The simulation can be integrated with hands-on lab experiments used in introductory chemistry.
Hunt the Ancestor
BBC's long-running television series, "Meet the Ancestors," is transformed into an online simulation. Based on a fictional rescue excavation in Greenshire, the user must recover a prehistoric burial under threat of destruction by a quarry. The simulation introduces important archelogical concepts.
Late Nite Labs
Enhance chemistry lab experience with meaninful pre-lab preparation. Hands-on simulations are easy and enjoyable to use, and emphasize essential chemistry concepts, laboratory techniques, and safety guidelines.
SimForest
By planting trees, setting environmental parameters, and observing their forest grow over a number of years, students begin to understand how the manipulation of physical growing conditions affects a forest. Students learn basic principles of botany and ecology while acquiring scientic inquiry and problem solving skills.
The Virtual Courseware Project
Supplement experimental laboratory or field work with inquiry-based activities. Virtual courseware is provided for inquiry-based science education (earth and life sciences), as well as earth and environmental studies (global warming and seismology). Interactive tutorials are also provided by Geology Labs Online and Biology Labs.
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