Social science education: a visualization and simulation perspective

As the Internet Age comes about with the easier accessibility of data, information and knowledge, human beings have created and accumulated a holistic understanding of the society in which we live. The social significance of our decisions and behaviors is an essence of social sciences, at any level of educational institutions. As compared with natural sciences, social sciences somewhat lack maturity in instructional technology, in Japan at least. The authors focus on the visualization and simulation of cause-and-effect relations in social systems, hoping to make some progress in computer based learning environments for social science education.