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Essential Question: Why do we use simulations?
Mastery Objectives:
SWBAT apply simulations to everyday situations.
A simulation is an abstraction of an infinitely complex natural phenomena. It removes details that aren't necessary or are too difficult to simulate. The level of abstraction in a simulation depends on why we're creating it in the first place.
Resources:
Covid Simulator - https://www.covid19sim.org/
CDC Simulator - https://www.cdc.gov/mobile/applications/sto/web-app.html
https://www.cdc.gov/digital-social-media-tools/mobile/applications/sto/web-app.html
There are many reasons to use computer simulations rather than real-world experiments to prove things about a situation. Experimenting in the real world may be:
Expensive, such as testing a proposed new airplane that might fall apart in strong winds. A simulation of the airplane and wind can eliminate some bad designs before building and testing a real airplane.
Time-consuming, such as testing the effects of a genetic mutation in a species across generations.
Dangerous, such as testing whether a nuclear reactor will survive an earthquake.
Unethical, such as giving a population a disease to test how fast it spreads.
Come up with some examples of complex real-life phenomena for which it would be impractical, impossible, dangerous, or unethical to conduct real-world experiments.
Explain how simulations may help with our understanding of these phenomena. What are some pros and cons of using computers to explore these situations?
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