FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS

UNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS

SSI 3013
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCE

Name & matric Marini binti Mohd Isa (D20151070952)

number
Nor Afifah binti Saaidi (D20151070993)
Ramizah binti Abdull Rahman (D20151070992)

Title Simulation (Stella Software)

Group A
Lecturer’s name Encik Azmi bin Ibrahim

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No Title Pages
1. Introduction 3

2. Advantages of simulation 3-4

3. Disadvatages of simulation 4

4. What is STELLA? 4-5

5. Discussion 5-7

6. How Stella can help students 8-9

7. Conclusion 10

8. References 10

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INTRODUCTION

Simulation by computer is the way of creating a model of an actual or theoretical

physical system by carrying out the model on a digital computer thus analyze. The output in
computer simulation, we can divide it into three sub-fields which are model design, model
execution and model analysis. If we want to learn more about system, we need to build and
operate the model first. This simulation can be equivalent with the ‘role play’ which is we
simulate people, animals or objects with toys and figurines to understand the progress or
process. As for us, the artificial objects are built to act out roles with them in order to understand
some reality and complexity. Hence, computer simulation acts as the electronic equivalence to
role play to drive synthetic environments and virtual world.

By using simulation, we also can simulate a physical thing such as mathematical model.
Firstly, we need to create a model to represent the physical object. There are many forms of
models such as declarative, functional, constraint, spatial or multi-model. Multi-model is a
model that consists of many integrated models. When the model has been developed, the model
is executed on the computer. This means that a computer program must be created which steps
through time and at the same time updating the state and event variables in the mathematical
model. Modeling uses software or and hardware to represent a real world system. If the
software components are driven by mathematical relationships, the model can be simulated in
various scenarios to verify that the system is correctly represented and input signals are
properly responded.

ADVANTAGES OF SIMULATION

1. Safety. By using simulation, it can avoid any danger and can reduce any accident during
the process. For example, the air-flight simulator gives opportunity to the inexperienced
flight attendants. How to fly air plane like in a real-life situation but in a safer mode.
2. Practical feedback. Simulators are able to give practical feedback about the real world
system to users. It can help the designer to save construction cost by allowing them to
explore better design alternatives thus make the best decision before physically build
the systems.
3. Easy to perform. The results are mostly accurate compared to analytical model. Users
also can have trial and can identify the errors as many times as desired. It is also can
help us to find an unexpected phenomenon. Besides that, simulation can be speed up so
that behavior can be studied easily over a long period of time. Other than that, the

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 simulation can be slow down to study the behavior more closely. The conditions can be
varied based on what we put and the outcomes can be investigated easily.
4. Effective way. It is an effective way to teach certain concepts to student by
demonstrating instead of just study about the theory in text books. Computer can
represent information by graphics, videos, sounds and animations which are can attract
student attention and enhance student to understanding the process effectively.

DISADVANTAGES OF SIMULATION

There is also some disadvantages of using simulation. Some of the disadvantages are
as below:

1. Costly. A simulation model is a bit costly to build and expensive to conduct the process.
It is costly when we were trying to build the model such as aerodynamic wind tunnels.
2. Needed of expertise. To run this simulation, a person must be expert in the computing
skills and programming as they need to understand well how the software is
functioning.
3. Well manage system. It is requires uses of computer system with a fast processor and
large memory.
4. Poor understanding and insufficient data. For this reason it has not been possible to
create simulations that can accurately predict the occurrence and effects of earthquakes
and tsunami. The formula and functions that are used may not provide an accurate
description of the system resulting in inaccurate output from the simulation.

What is STELLA?

STELLA is computer simulation software that provides a practical way to visualize

and communicate how complex the system really works in the real world. A lot of people can
use this simulation as it can give teachers, students, and researchers to utilize the software and
explore more to an endless questions and experiments. The model itself provides a lot of
opportunities for the students to explore by questioning what is happening in reality. It also can
make the learning process more exciting and effective. STELLA is being used widely by many
researchers and educators to study various fields such as physics, calculus, economics,
literature, chemistry, medicine and so on. It recognized for its ability to stimulate learning in
users.

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 In this assignment, we used STELLA software on prey-predator relationship between
owls and mice in palm oil tree farm and through this experiment we can predict the effect of
mice and owls population to the palm oil tree. Thus, instead of carrying out the experiments in
a real laboratory, STELLA enables us to save time and cost and also helps to predict outcomes
almost immediately.

DISCUSSION

Graph 1

• In the graph we can see that the number of owl decreased from 13 to 12 at the beginning
of the experiment

• Due to insufficient number of mice

• Then, the number of owl and the number of mice have a directly proportional
relationship

• So, increasing number of mice will increase the number of owl

• Thus, the production of palm fruit increased steadily through the year

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Graph 2

• In this graph, the population number of mice is adjusted from 23000 to 28000 while the
number of owl is adjusted from 13 to 18. The number of owl was increasing by the year
initially but it drops drastically until the number of owl become zero value.

• This happen because, the number of mice as the food supply is cut off.

• The number of mice start to increase by the years after the owl is no longer exist

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Graph 3

• In the graph, we can analysed that the number of owl is increased from 13 to 16 so, the
number of mice decreased

• After a long time, the number of mice start to increase steadily because the number of
owl remain constant

• But the number of palm fruit production still increasing

• After a few years later, there is a declination in number of palm fruit production due
increasing of the number of mice

• The number of mice is increasing throughout the experiment

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HOW STELLA CAN HELP STUDENT

1) INCREASE STUDENTS MOTIVATION

One of the purpose of educational simulation (Stella) is to motivate the learners or

students to engage problem solving, hypothesis testing, experimental learning, scheme
construction and development of mental models. Using this technique in teaching in learning
is really an effective method to motivate students to increase their interest towards learning.
Simulation can motivate student in many ways includes ability of this Stella software to create
a risk free environment and allow students to explore the simulation.

2) ALLOW EXPERIMENT EXPLORATION

Simulation can enhance students motivation and interest to learn since they are very
familiar with the computers and digital games. They love environment of learning that requires
them to explore which suit their curiosity and high-tech mind.

Stella software allow students to interact with the simulations and mostly, simulation
are designed with flexible architecture that allow their variables to be altered. So, students can
change the parameter in the variables and observe how the simulated outcomes changes. By
directly modifying a model, students can experience with the behaviour of the models in a
number of different scenarios. By doing a simulation using Stella too, students can relate it
with the content knowledge and with the real life.

The main purpose of simulation is to allow the motivated students to have a deeper
understanding of the experiment or model they simulate. With the animated outcomes such as
graph plotting, charts, relations, and diagrams, students will have a better picture of the process.
Other than that, of course animated and interesting interface of the simulations from the Stella
can attract the students’ interest to learn.

3) STUDENT CAN PRACTICE PROBLEM SOLVING SKILL

Meaningful learning are when students can relate what they study with the real world
situation. It is a good alternative to consider transforming every classroom setting into a
situated learning environment. It is possible to bring some of the benefits of situated learning
into the conventional classroom setting by using Stella. Stella facilitates situated learning by
providing interactive practice of real-world skills, focusing on the essential elements of a real
problem or system.

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 Problem solving skill is one of the important skill that everyone needs. Student can
develop skills through real life situation and experience. One of the other way to develop this
skills is through learning with the assistance of simulation. The simulation presents the
environment, authentic information sources and the tools to let the student solve the problem
and test their knowledge. As mentioned before, Stella provides risk free environment, student
or teacher does not have to worry about any risky outcome may be happened.

4) HELPS STUDENT VISUALIZE ‘INVISIBLE’ SCIENCE PROCESS

Students are hard to understand science concept that cannot be seen through their eyes.
Therefore, they need some visualization to help them see and understand the process or
phenomena of the science concept. This is why Stella can be integrated in teaching and learning
science to help students visualize and get real picture of what they learn. Simulation are needed
to visualize process that is too small to review such as reproduction of bacteria.

5) ALLOW STUDENT TO ANALYZE DATA AND PREDICT FUTURE

OUTCOME

Simulation can be useful in predicting the future outcome with all the necessary study
data. In real life, no one can predict future accurately but we can study the pattern for the
highest probability that will occur. By using Stella, student are able to study the trend of the
outcome whenever they manipulate the variable because student can see the trend of the
experiment when they run the experiment. Take the graph from the pendulum experiment, it
can be seen that the graph have certain pattern and the next graph can be predicted

Analysing and predicting data by using Stella can enhance student’s thinking skill and
problem solving skill. This process also can give student the introduction on how to do on a
research, which they will do in their higher level of education later.

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CONCLUSION
This simulation is a combination of biology and chemistry, which is called
biochemistry. This simulation provides a platform for students in research and for further
understanding in enzymatic pathways and kinetics. Students learned by analyzing and
synthesizing graphs, which is against the norms in traditional teaching. This simulation can
increase student knowledge and assists them to doing the research by their own more easily and
practically. In conclusion, simulation contributes in teaching as it enhances understanding and
promotes higher order thinking skills. Moreover, the result that was obtained by using this
simulation also more accurate rather than doing the graph manually.

REFERENCES

Craig, D. (1996, July 8). Disadvantages of Simulation. Retrieved from Disadvantages of Simulation

STELLA (Systems Thinking for Education and Research). (n.d.). Retrieved from Data Observation
Netwok for Earth: https://www.dataone.org/software-tools/stella-systems-thinking-
education-and-research

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