講座內容：An important movement in European science education is learning bymodelling. This is part of the wish to make science education more inquiryoriented in order to interest more people for a career in science andtechnology. Dynamic models play a central role in science as a main vehicle toexpress and evaluate our understanding of complex systems. Therefore, theability to reason with and about models and to create models of dynamic systemsis an important higher order thinking skill. In teaching young children how tomodel, the choice for model representation is an important one. Representationsvary from mathematical formula, programming languages and diagrammaticrepresentations.

In the presentation I will present SimSketch, an approach in whichchildren can create dynamic, multi-agent models, based on drawings. Byrepresenting systems in drawings, assigning behavior to elements of the drawingand simulate the resulting model, children can express and test their ideasabout natural and artificial systems.

In the presentation I will both present conceptual and technical issuesrelated to SimSketch as well as studies in which children have used SimSketchto represent systems such as the Solar System, traffic and the spreading ofdiseases. The role of this approach will be discussed in the context ofEuropean programs such as Horizon2020.