UNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS

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SSI3013
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCE
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TOPIC: STELLA SIMULATION

GROUP MEMBERS:
NO NAME MATRIC NO
1 NAJWA NAZUHA BINTI BABA D20152072044
2 ZETY AKHTAR BINTI MOHAMED D20152072013
3 NUR AISAH BINTI ISMAIL D20151070984

GROUP: A
LECTURER: ENCIK AZMI BIN IBRAHIM

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Introduction

STELLA is a visual programming language for system dynamics modelling

introduced by Barry Richmond in 1985. The program, distributed by isee systems (formerly
High Performance Systems) allows users to run models created as graphical representations
of a system using four fundamental building blocks. STELLA is a short for Systems
Thinking, Experimental Learning Laboratory with Animation and also marketed as i-Think.
Isee system is a leading developer and manufacturer of Systems Thinking and Dynamic
Modelling software. In 1989, Barry Richmond (and isee systems) was awarded the Jay
Wright Forrester Award by the System Dynamics Society for being the first to introduce an
icon-based model building and simulation tool, STELLA. STELLA brought computer
simulation-based model building to the mass market.

Barry Richmond believed that as a population, our methods of thinking and

communicating were out dated, making it difficult to solve the major issues of the world. A
solution for this is to change the way we think, communicate, and teach. This new dynamic
way of thinking, called Systems Thinking, enables people to build a better understanding of
the world around them, so that they make better decisions. Isee systems is dedicated to
continuing this effort to change the way we think by bringing Systems Thinking to the world.
We want people to challenge the world around them and break out of a static way of thinking.
We strive to create intuitive, easy-to-use dynamic modelling software that makes Systems
Thinking accessible to everyone, from beginner to expert. As people continue to use Systems
Thinking every day, they will be better able to understand dynamic relationships within a
system, think through a problem, and communicate their ideas and solutions more
proficiently.

STELLA has been used in academic as a teaching tool and has been utilized in a
variety of research and business applications. The program has received positive reviews,
being praised in particular for its ease of use and low cost. Because of its simplicity relative
to more complex modelling languages, STELLA has been cited as a useful tool in
educational settings.

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Motivation

The purpose of an educational simulation is to motivate the learner to engage in problem

solving, hypothesis testing, experiential learning, schema construction, and development of
mental models. Using simulation in teaching and learning is really an effective method to
motivate students and to gain their interest towards learning. Simulation can motivate
students in several ways. It includes the ability of simulation to create a risk free environment
and allow students to explore the simulation.

 Allow experiment exploration

The main goal of simulation is to allow the motivated students to have a deeper
understanding of the experiment or model they simulate. Sometimes, students are hard to
understand sciences concept that cannot be seen through their eyes. So that, they need some
visualization to help them see and understand the real process or concept occur. By using
STELLA simulation, with the animated outcomes such as graph plotting, charts, relations,
and diagram, students will have a better picture of the process. Therefore, students can gain
their knowledge and get new experience of doing this experiment. They can explore more by
using STELLA simulation. Students can experiment with the behaviour of the models in a
number of different scenarios. Students can change any parameter in the simulation and
observe how the simulated outcomes changes. When doing a simulation, students can relate it
with the content of knowledge and with the real life. Other than that, of course animated and
interesting interface of the simulations can attract the students’ interest to learn.

 Students can practice problem solving skills

In the real world, students encounter problems that are complex, not well defined and lack a
clear solution and approach. They need to be able to identify and apply different strategies to
solve the problems. Simulations offer an easy way of controlling experimental variables,
opening up the possibility of exploration and hypothesizing. Simulation is also valuable in
presenting many types of representational formats including diagrams, graphics, animation,
sound and video that can facilitate understanding.

Students are required to formulate the problem, list the variables contributing to the problem,
make assumptions, determine growth/decay patterns, develop a dynamic hypothesis, use
STELLA diagram to visually represent components of the problem under study, create
graphical representation of the relationship between variables, make conclusions, explain

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limitations of the model and make reasonable decisions to improve the results of the model.
Simulation can give result, analyse data into the real world process. The project was
integrated with STELLA simulation software to enhance deeper understanding for students.
Students can construct themselves to gain their knowledge when they try to understand and
justify their observation of the results. Student can practice by themselves of solving the
problems.

Manipulate

What interesting and helpful about STELLA is that it will enable us to manipulate and
analyse the data as what result we wish to get. The best thing is, it will immediately give out
the result as we run the experiment by simply clicking the ‘run’ button. This running
simulations with different scenario improves understanding of both the system and its policy
implications. To manipulate or change the data to see different result, we need to set it up at
the interface button. For our simulation here, we have the ‘knob’ to increase or decrease the
population of the owl and rat to see the effect on the population of palm oil. This interface is
for the purpose of showing the model’s sequential development, and to run different
scenarios. Detailed explanation of manipulated data in this simulation are discussed on the
discussion part below.

Prediction

Student should predict and explain the outcomes that they expect the simulation to generate.
From that, the students will not stay passively in the class experiment. Every effort should be
make it difficult for them to become passive. Each student must submit timely input and not
rely on classmates to play for them. So, everyone will have an experience of using this
simulation.

According to the pattern of the graph on figure 3, students are able to predict what
will happen if the value of rat back to normal and the value of owl still maintain and students
already know what are pattern is. From the graph, we can see if the value of owl maintain, the
value of rat will increase slowly and the value of palm oil will decrease rapidly.

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From that, student will more understand as they conduct the experiment by themselves and
find relationship between the variables in order to get the conclusion. If they did not use this
simulation, they maybe not understand but they are only memorize what the teacher has
taught them in the class.

Discussion

In this simulation we want to conduct experiment about the interaction of owl and rat will
affect palm oil. Figure 1 show the normal pattern of interaction. For the beginning, we click
the ‘run’ button without changing any value in order to know what graph will be produce.
Then we can see predator-prey oscillations are common in many simple ecosystem. This
meant that the condition fir this interaction is stable.

This step is to demonstrate to the student on how to use this simulation and see the
relationship among the variable on the graph. This simulation can make the students more
interested to conduct an experiment because they are able to change the values to any value
that they want and see what the result is.

Figure 1

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 Figure 2

Figure 3

Next, figure 2 show the changing value of owl and rat. After changing the value of owl and
rat, the graph will be like on figure 2. We increase the value of owl and rat for figure 2 and
we increase value for owl only for figure 3. We can see that, if the amount of owl increase,
the amount of rat will decrease and if the amount of owl decrease, the amount of rat will
increase so that the amount of palm oil will decrease too. From this simulation, student will
more understand as they conduct the experiment by themselves and find the relationship
between the variable in order to get the conclusion of the interaction.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Stella Simulation

Advantages:

1. Can boost student motivation

 Student are able to explore the experiment by themselves. So that, it can help
students to learn more through this simulation. The students can carry out the
experiment by their own and this simulation can let them to ease change and
adjust the parameter given for more understanding. At the same time, it can
make experiment session more enjoyable too. This is because students can
repeat the experiment for more than once. Students had the advantage of the
simulation tools, animations, and learning modules to get more insight into the
theoretical contents of the course. Students will have the opportunity to put a
number of theoretical concepts into practice by simply using the simulation.
Besides that, learning through simulation can bring them to deep learning too
and can make student more understanding about the topic.

2. Can make further prediction for certain cases

 Sometimes, certain topics to be learn by students cannot be done for real
because of certain reasons, for example for explosion, corrosion and so on. So
that, by using this simulation, students are able to make prediction for that
topic easily. At the same time, learning by using simulation give many benefit
for students such as the students will feel happy to learn something and the
process of teaching and learning become more meaningful. The students
become very more motivated and interested for that subject.

3. Effective for teaching or demonstrating concepts to students

 Teachers can use computer graphics and animation in the process of teaching
and learning. Such simulation can show the behavioural and relationship of all
the simulated system’s components, thereby providing the user with a
meaningful understanding of the system’s nature. For example, circuit
simulation. This simulation can permit students to speed up, slow down, stop
or even reverse a simulation as a means of aiding understanding.

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 4. Provide teachers with better access to students
 Simulations can be an instrumented to the teachers to monitor their students to
make an experiment better and can build data accurately and precise. This is
because, teachers themselves can automated this simulation in the class. Besides,
this simulation allowed teachers and students to alter the parameters of the system
and observe the resulting changes. This simulation has the potential to engage
students in deep learning that empowers understanding compare to the surface
learning that require only memorization.

Disadvantages:

1) The Technological Infrastructure in school.

Now days, there are some schools that do not have complete ICT equipment in their schools.
The problem is due to capital inadequate school to provide ICT equipment. Mostly happen at
rural school because they are far from the city so they are least of ICT facilities. Compare to
urban school that more advance and they complete all the ICT equipment with computer lab.
So, if there are not have technological infrastructure in school, this simulation cannot be
create to student.

Conclusion

As a conclusion, STELLA simulations help students visualize teaching and learning. Students
can increase complexity of model gradually. STELLA models can play a large role in making
the presentation of complex and easy to understand for students. STELLA (Systems Thinking
for Education and Research from isee Systems) is a modelling software package that
diagrams, charts, and uses animation help visual learners discover relationships between
variables and helps simplify model building. They provide interesting and exciting mode of
learning to the new generation students. Not only to attract the students’ interest, simulation
also promoted constructivism learning to students. Through simulation, students can explore
the content of the simulation. They have the freedom to change any parameter in the
simulation and observe the result. Hence, the first important finding of this indicates that
simulation models such as STELLA are used to expand students' experience of experimental
science.

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References

Chapter, B. R. (1992). An Introduction to Systems Thinking. Retrieved from

https://www.iseesystems.com/resources/articles/download/intro-systems-thinking-chapt-
1.pdf

Croope, S. V. (2010). Developing the STELLA Model for a DSS for Mitigation Strategies for
Transportation Infrastructure: Building the Model’s Interface in STELLA. Retrieved
from https://www.ce.udel.edu/UTC/WorkingPaperMode-Interface.pdf

Judy McKimm & Simon Edgar. (2013). Simulation in Clinical Education. Vienna: Wiley.
Josefa Mula, Francisco Campuzano. (2009). Supplyu Chain Simulation. New York: Springer.

Madachy, r. j. (2008). Software Process Dynamics. Canada: John Wiley and Son.
Winsberg, C. (2010). Science in The Age of Computer Simulation. London: University of
Chicago.