CS382:Unit-descriptions

Reorganized Unit Descriptions

• Foundational Material (Sam )
• Computational Sociology (Nate)
• Fire, aka Using a dynamic model (Charlie)
• Area, aka Building a static model (Charlie)
• Environmental/Climate Modeling (Mikio)
• Probabilistic rhythmic model (Bryan)
• Hurricane Modeling (Ian)
• Possibility: combined labs? (Ian)
• Lightning Modeling(Mikio)
• Engineering Modeling(Dylan)
• Aerodynamics-Airplane/flight modeling (Vlado)
• Traffic Flow (Fitz)

• Your unit goes here (following the above naming convention)

Archived Ideas

• Protein Folding (Charlie)
• More Archived Ideas (All)
• Phylogenetic Trees (Samuel)

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Philip

Chemical modeling - Using resources to model molecules and looking at the kind of molecule a certain combination of atoms make. Goes into using this kind of modeling to make new drugs. Would include a lecture that harks back to an (most likely) earlier lecture about how modeling is the third leg and then go into how drug companies have saved billions of dollars by being able to get through the early phases of drug development with just models. Would have a lab to come up with a feasible possibility for a new type of drug, and what it would/could possibly treat. Need to look into the availability of a computational chem server, as it might not be for use for beyond high school.

• Molecular modelling (wikipedia) This has a whole host of potential softwares to use for this.
• Ghemical homepage This is a software listed on the wiki linked above that I have heard of and have any kind of familiarity with. Though there are certainly many others and it would be a good idea to look at all or most of them in a fair amount of depth before making any decisions as to what software to use.

Pros:

• Maybe able to get the lab or software from Shodor
• Accessible and immediate feedback, understand why would want to do this in the real life
• Hits chemistry (discipline we want to include)

Cons:

• Potentially too complex
• No "numbers", more abstract
• Not immediately comparable to a real world thing, hard to have a real world lab

Comments:

• Walk through making a drug that already exists.
• Find similarities in a drug family

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Possibly a more structured/simpler version of the parachute lab done in CS290. Obviously having them perform the parachute drops and such would not be feasible but we could have them start out with the videos and some figures and they would do the netlogo aspect of the lab for themselves. (Different sized parachutes attached to different weights - dropped them and measured them, and then tried to model it and decide how fast different weights should drop with different parachutes.)

Pros:

• Simple enough that they can create their own model, not just look at other people's models
  • Important that we have at least one unit where they create their own model
• Lots of math and physics
• Could create own model in Netlogo (or at least adjust a toy model already created)

Cons:

• Physical drops took a very long time to do.
• Would need to be able to some programming on a very basic level if they're going to create their own.

Comments:

• Part of Charlie's "prove gravity" lab?
• Maybe we shouldn't have them create their own model but rather adjust sliders, etc. or at least have most of a toy model made

Samuel

Fermiproblems - Use fermiproblems to encourage students to be comfortable making estimates and discovering ways to estimate with only limited data available. Examples are available here: http://iws.ccccd.edu/mbrooks/demos/fermi_questions.htm

• A list of Problems is available here: http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/fermi/fermi.htm
• Emphasis could be put upon using available sources to find figures as well as how to make estimates where figures are not available
• Problems could be picked which are relevant to the models which the students will later be constructing as a class.
• Students should be taught how to show their reasoning behind extrapolations and to become comfortable with doing so.
• The instructors should have worked through examples showing a complete model and demonstrating which information is necessary for a ballpark estimation and which is not.

Pros

• What makes a good model vs. what makes just a model

Cons

Comments

• Is this included in all of the other units, or also use this and then use these skills in lots of other places
• Include talking about orders of magnitude, scale, significant figures, accuracy vs. precision, pattern recognition

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Assembling a phylogenetic tree - Look at models available from the bioinformatics toolbench and experiment with different ways comparing protein similarity. This could be tied into a lecture on protein folding as protein homology like indicative of phylogeny.

Vlado

For the unit description follow the following link:

https://wiki.cs.earlham.edu/index.php/Aerodynamics

Mikio

• Lightning - Simulating a thunderstorm, including atmosphere, charged cloud, building on earth and etc. Estimating which area will get damages.
  • Lightning (Wikipedia)
  • Make Lightning Strike (National Geographic)
• Fermentation food - Set up food and bacteria (e.g. milk and lactobacillus) and simulate how they get fermented and rotten.
  • Fermentation (Wikipedia)

Ian

• Hurricane tracking-- like the data that was shown to CS128, we can have them simulate the paths of hurricanes, severity, etc.
• Tsunami simluation-- similar to the above, except... with tsunamis. [edit: upon further investigation, tsunamis seem less model-able and are more a matter of using sensors and communication systems to detect them and broadcast warnings]
• If we're trying to generate interest, I think it would be good to initially give them huge models of catastrophic events that, to put it crudely, feel "awesome"; Just something to give them the ability to say "Well, WE just simulated a friggin' hurricane that tore across the east coast of the U.S." It might help plug them into the class.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_forecast_model (has descriptions of various models for tracking cyclones and hurricanes)
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Weather_Research_and_Forecasting_model
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAZUS

Dylan

• I was thinking of doing something with biology. This may be too complicated, given current technology, but if we could take a model of a cell and start playing with it, maybe tweaking a few of the parts, and see if that would have any effect on how that alters the function of the cell in the body?

• Alternately, we could do something with engineering. Develop structual models, and see what sort of crazy structures you could make that would stand on their own. There's already some rudimentary stuff to do this with, such as Bridgebuilder, but if we could possibly do something more complicated, I think that would be awesome.