An exploratory case study of interactive simulation for teaching Ecology

This paper explores the effectiveness of interactive simulation for teaching a selected complex subject, Ecology, in higher education. Specifically, we carry out a lab intervention using interactive agent based simulation, to teach the complex concept of spatially-explicit predator prey interaction to undergraduate students of an advanced module: BIOU9CE (Community Ecology & Conservation Applications) at the University of Stirling. We propose use of Netlogo, an interactive agent-based simulation tool, and evaluate its effectiveness for learning and teaching of interactive simulation developed specifically for the classroom, compared with an existing, less interactive, simulation tool (R).