| Description:
WindowBox is a program that allows the simulation of a population of plants, with the purpose of showing how simulations can be useful instruments for the reproduction and comprehension of complex systems and how they can be used as virtual teaching laboratories for the teaching of this type of phenomena. The evolution process of a population of plants is particularly suitable for this purpose as:
- they are a scientifically confirmed phenomena
- they are familiar phenomena at large
- they are an issue present in scholastic programs
- they are an example of a complex system
WindowBox simulates every plant singularly. Each one has it's own features derived from: 1) genetic Code 2) Conditions of the plant 3) Position in the environment. The environment is a grill of 15x15 cells where every cell can contain: 1) Abbundant light, that is the same in all the cells 2) Natural resources (water and mineral nourishments) whose quantity can vary from cell to cell.
WindowBox rappresenta queste informazioni graficamente, e permette di
manipolare vari parametri, permettendo in tal modo di poter operare osservazioni ed
esperimenti che per motivi pratici, economici o etici non possono essere condotti nei
laboratori reali.
WindowBox represents this information graphically, and allows us to manipulate various parameters, thus allowing to operate observations and experiments th
at for practical reasons, economical or ethical, cannot be conducted in the real laboratories. |
