In this lesson students will design their own ecosystems projects consisting of a question, experimental design and model. In the first activity, students will learn about the computational science cycle and use it to scope their project.

• Watch a video on the Computational Science Cycle
• Hear about a few possible additions to make new ecosystems projects
  
• create a competitor species at one trophic level
• create an intermediate trophic level
• change the behavior of the agents (ex. chase and runaway)
  
• Develop an original design for your computational science project

Watch a video on the Computational Science Cycle 

Hear about some ideas for potential customizations of the base model to make it a new project.

When looking to create an original design for a computational science project, look to your own environment and region for an ecosystem to model.  Here are some projects we've seen students create over the years.

• Polar bears, penguins and killer whales
• Bark beetles and pinon trees
• Rabbits and coyotes in the desert Southwest (USA)
  
• Lions and giraffes on an African plain
• Macrophages and microphages
  

Develop an original design for your computational science project.
Start with a project design form  and fill in the sections on developing your project  abstraction.