Project Proposal ― Learning1 Statement of ProblemObviously traditional classroom lectures are less exciting and interesting as a method to teach physics to childre. As shown in the video of teaching physics that was played in this class, a live experiment helps children to understand the facts and theories behind them. However, not all physical phenomena can be demonstrated in school. Even if we limit the scope to the very elementary physics, it would not be easy to show that the gravity between two objects is propotional to the mass of each (not just one!) object in a classroom.One solution to this problem would be the use of the interactive computer simulation. If we let children interact with such a system, they are expected to explore how a physical theory governs the movement of objects, thus deepning their understanding of the theory. As Norman suggested[1], we need to design such a system as interesting and attractive to children as a game. The intention of our project is to further the fundamental understanding of children about gravity in direct relation to different masses of planets in the solar system. We plan to model a planetary solar system that will help children learn about orbit and gravitational forces in space. In addition our implementation will simulate gravity on differing planets with a ball drop simulation. We will be developing this in AgentSheets, so we would like to report on the usefulness of this as a development tool for learning. 2 RationaleThis project focuses on designing our application to an atmosphere of young children. This implies the need for a fun and intrinsically motivating application, and the design process should also be fun and motivating to us. The project is geared towards the creation of a tool to aid in the learning of universal physics, and we hope we will understand the essence of effective learning. The end result of this project will be derived from the execution of our collaborative efforts, and we should learn how to combine different skill sets from each group member.3 Implementation3.1 Technical ApproachWe intend to use AgentSheets to implement our project because it will be easy for teachers to use and deploy to their students. We will use AgentSheets to implement a Java applet to present a GUI for the user that will be easy to create and simulate a planetary solar system with predefined planets where a user can specify mass and distance from the center of the system sun. User can then become involved in an interactive applet for each planet represented where they will be able to experiment with the affects of gravity specific to each underlying planet. We feel that our approach is a reasonable one, because it is something that builds on a presumption that most everyone will have a predisposed knowledge regarding gravity and the effects of gravity here on Earth. This will make it much easier to transition into our application’s simulation by the ability to relate the physics that will be modeled.3.2 Implementation PlanOver the next couple of weeks, we will begin a conceptual design of our application as well as research information on the domain that we will be teaching. We will begin early development using a free-trial of AgentSheets to prototype our design. This process should tell us everything we need to know to implement a final version of the applet.4 ReferencesThis idea was derived from the Game Design for Education course.
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