Partnerships to Advance Learning in Science Developing, Implementing, and Sharing Constructivist Learning Resources

These simulations were created at Iowa State University to support learning in a large-lecture introductory meteorology class. The development and application of these simulations have been reported at several conferences (e.g. Yarger et al, 1998, Hsu et al, 1998a,b), however, the proceedings are difficult to find. Thus three manuscripts are provided to support the use of these simulations.

• Constructivist Learning Environments
• MountainSim Development
• MountainSim Formative Evaluation

DLESE ID#:   000-532	Instructions AdvectionSim This applet simulates warm and cold air advection in the United States. It allows users to vary wind speed and direction in Ames, Iowa. The results show how the temperature gradient would change over a matter of time given the wind speed and direction.
DLESE ID#:   000-550	Instructions BudgetSim This applet simulates the energy intake of our atmosphere during the day and the lose of energy at night. Users can vary the intensity of the sun during the day. A tub of water fills up symbolically showing the energy intake of our atmosphere.
DLESE ID#:   000-029	Instructions MountainSim This applet simulates the difficult concepts of adiabatic processes. A leaf symbolizes a parcel of air rising over the Mountain. Graphs then display the information as the leaf rises and falls. Users are allowed to vary the beginning temperature and vapor-pressure of the leaf.
DLESE ID#:   000-549	Instructions RadiationSim This applet simulates the differences of thermal exchange among four types of ground surfaces. Users can chose which land type they want to experiment with and then compare the results side-by-side in a graph.

References

Yarger, D. N., J. Peter Boysen, and Rex Thomas, Iowa State University and Mary R. Marlino, Univ. Corporation for Atmospheric Research, 1998: Developing And Implementing A Constructivist Learning Environment: Translating Theory Into Practice, 10th World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia and World Conference on Educational Telecommunications, Freiburg, Germany, June 20-25, 1998. ED MEDIA-TELCOM 1998 CD, 2116-2119.

Hsu, Ying-Shao, John Peter Boysen, Douglas N. Yarger, Iowa State University and Chi-Chuan Chen, AGRIS corporation, 1998: The development of an exploratory simulation for constructivist learning - An example of Java application, USAWebNet 98--World Conference of the WWW, Internet and lntranet, Orlando, FL, USA, November 7-12, 1998. WEBNET 1998 CD, 1090-1092.

Hsu, Ying-Shao, John Peter Boysen, Douglas N. Yarger, Iowa State University and Chi-Chuan Chen, AGRIS corporation, 1998: Development and formative evaluation of an instructional simulation for a web-aided meteorology course, USAWebNet 98--World Conference of the WWW, Internet and lntranet, Orlando, FL, USA, November 7-12, 1998. WEBNET 1998 CD, 1290-1293.