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Simulations as an Educational Tool

Teacher-guided simulation development and interaction is a useful tool to give students hand-on learning experience with complex real-world systems.
Graduate student pursuing an applied/experimental philosophy project
March 5×5 Night In Muskegon
Voting Closes:

March 20, 2023 11:59 pm

About this idea
The use of simulations can be found in a vast number of scientific fields. The development and use of the simulations to aid a particular task requires many skills involved in STEM. It is often the case that teaching students about these various real-world systems in a hands-on manner is restricted for a myriad reasons. However, simulations could be a very useful tool for that task. Given the progress of certain highly technical fields, certain aspects of the very same simulation toolkits and skill used in contributing to that body-of-knowledge are one and the same that is able to be used as an educational tool for students. There is also a lot of potential for the design of a simulation model in which student participation is used to collect data points, to be analyzed as a class project. This application could vary in scope, from fostering curiosity in STEM, to allowing students to participate in state-of-the-art research.
Impact
My goal for this project is to introduce it as an educational program aimed at occupying a dedicated time-slot in an after-school program. This initial phase would be towards work-shopping some of the lesson plan to gauge things like: formulations for varying age-groups, work-shopping the nature of simulation inter-activeness that capture students attention, the types of real-world system simulations they are learning in school, as well as other possible STEM systems suitable for their age-group. This would present a novel learning environment that also builds extremely useful life skills; such as problem-solving and critical-thinking. I aim to bring this resource and educational program to low-resource school districts, and foster curiosity in students.
What I'll do with $5,000
$5,000 would allow me to: - acquire one more piece of hardware necessary for the program's development (mini-pc ~$1,000) - the mini pc will be used to develop, store, and run all the lesson plans - it will be brought with me, along with all other necessary resources, from site to site, to deliver the program - it will provide me with more 'compute-power' allowing more students to interact with the same system at a given time - the grant will also allow to shift more of my focus on the develop of the lesson plan, student-interaction architecture, etc., so that I can introduce it to after-school programs sooner. It will be covering day-to-day living expenses, so that I can get the technical-aspects set up in order to be pursed full-time (eventually getting to the point where I can support myself by providing this service)
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About benjamin lysek

Graduate student pursuing an applied/experimental philosophy project

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Tarra Carson
HBCU Club of Muskegon, LLC
The HBCU Club of Muskegon will challenge young scholars to become active, positive role models, and decision-makers, and assist in their transition from high school to college to becoming responsible young adults. The HBCU Club of Muskegon will focus on the foundation of Historical Black Colleges and Universities while making an impact through diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
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