TDSB 'Cobweb' Curriculum

An Introduction to Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, Complexity, and the Cobweb Simulation Platform
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We would like to thank Professors Yossi Elran and Michal Elran of the Weizmann Institute for permission to use material on the Game of Life from their Math-by-Mail program. PROJECT MANAGER Steve Bibla, Toronto District School Board PRINCIPAL AUTHORS Dr. Brad Bass, Adaptation and Impacts Research Section, Environment Canada at the University of Toronto Steve Bibla, Toronto District School Board CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS Eleanor Dudar, Toronto District School Board Gillian Duke, University of Toronto Stewart Grant, Toronto District School Board Paul Hackl, Toronto District School Board Dharshika Pathmanathan, University of Toronto Tyler Sommers, University of Toronto Frank Verre, Toronto Catholic District School Board Eric Dunbar, Toronto District School Board Jane Huynh, University of Toronto
2011 Toronto District School Board Schools, school boards, post-secondary institutions and government agencies may reproduce and adapt this publication in whole or in part for educational purposes without special permission from the copyright holder, as long as acknowledgement of the source is provided. No use of this publication may be made for resale or for any other commercial purposes whatsoever without prior permission in writing from the Toronto District School Board. For more information, please contact: Toronto District School Board Library and Learning Resources 3 Tippett Road, Toronto, ON M3H 2V1 Tel: 416.397.2595 Fax: 416.395.8357 Email: curriculumdocs@tdsb.on.ca Every reasonable precaution has been taken to trace the owners of copyrighted material and to make due acknowledgment. Any omission will gladly be rectified in future printings. If you have comments or questions about this document, please contact Brad Bass at 416.978.6285 or brad.bass@ec.gc.ca DOWNLOADING COBWEB SOFTWARE COBWEB software can be downloaded from www.cobweb.ca.
2011 Toronto District School Board
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PART 2 Using COBWEB ........................................................................................................................... 45 The Basics of Operations .............................................................................................. 46 Starting Your First Experiments .................................................................................... 47 Saving the Data .............................................................................................................. 48 The File and Edit Menus ............................................................................................... 49 Activity 2.1 A Simple In-class Exercise to Introduce COBWEB ................................ 50 BLM 2.1.1 Part 1: Navigating the Simulation Grid ................................................ 51 BLM 2.1.2 Part 2 Graphing the Results .................................................................. 53 BLM 2.1.3 Counting your Critters ...........................................................................54 Activity 2.2 Heat Emergency Simulation .................................................................. 55 Activity 2.3 Generalist versus Specialist Simulation ................................................ 59 Activity 2.4 Vector-Borne Disease Simulation ......................................................... 65
PART 3 After working with COBWEB ..................................................................................................... 73 Activity 3.1 Further Experiments with COBWEB .................................................... 74 Activity 3.2 Stop the Bites: Develop an Adaptation Policy for Mosquito Control ............................................... 77 BLM 3.2.1 Stop the Bites: How Would You Tackle Mosquito Control? ................. 79 Activity 3.3 Responding to Smog Advisories: Understanding Human Choice through Games ........................................................ 81 BLM 3.3.1 Prisoners Dilemma Worksheet 1 ........................................................ 87 BLM 3.3.2 Prisoners DilemmaFree Rider, Worksheet 2 ..................................... 88 References and Recommended Resources ................................................................................ 89
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Objectives
The main goal of this curriculum package is to introduce students to the study of climate change impacts and adaptation through the lens of health. The package includes a series of readings, activities, experiments, a workshop, and synthesizing activities that provide students with an interactive educational experience. Students will learn new skills and will have access to COBWEB as a new tool that can be used for other projects in high school or university.
Specific objectives include:

1. Understanding how climate change can affect health and, in particular, how it might lead to the emergence of new diseases in the 21st century, many of which were once thought of as tropical or rare in Canada 2. Understanding how adaptationchanging our behaviour, technology, the structure of our organizations, and how governments reach and implement decisions to benefit the publiccan reduce our vulnerability to climate change 3. Understanding the language of ecosystems as complex systems and how to work with these ideas in thinking about impacts and adaptation 4. Introducing students to COBWEB (Complexity and Organized Behaviour Within Environmental Bounds) software, a simulation package that was developed to study complexity and how complex systems might adapt to environmental change u The Curriculum Package The Curriculum Package has three sections: 1. Readings and discussion about the impacts of climate change on health. These activities are short, and involve both group and individual work. 2. Activities, both pen-and-paper and computer-based, about complexity. These activities introduce students to relevant ideas about complexity and to the world of COBWEB.
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A workshop with the COBWEB software, exploring how adaptation can reduce the severity of new diseases. This workshop can be conducted in a computer lab at your school or at the University of Toronto. The workshop is offered by Dr. Brad Bass, the developer of COBWEB. Dr. Bass has been running workshops on adaptation with COBWEB to students from grades 4 through 12 since 2005.
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3. Final activities on adaptation that synthesize the ideas in the curriculum package. One involves more detailed experimental investigation with COBWEB. The second is a practical exercisedeveloping an adaptation policy to cope with a new disease such as West Nile virus. The third activity uses games theory with students to explore adaptations to smog advisories.
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Climate change is expected to increase risks to the health of Canadians through many pathways: the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and our exposure to extreme weather events and infectious diseases found in nature. Adaptation helps us prepare ourselves now for the expected future changes by taking actions to minimize risks. Understanding existing health vulnerabilities in society and among specific population groups allows decision makers within and outside of the health sector to target focus their resources, policies, and program priorities in order to better protect Canadians. Pronczuk and Surdu (2008) summarize a chain of impacts from climate change. Climate change impacts might be first felt as extreme cold or heat, floods, storms, and fires that in turn can lead to drought, desertification, deforestation, sea-level rise, loss of biological diversity, and degradation of terrestrial ecosystems and fisheries. These changes impact other factors that affect health, such as food quality, food supply, water quality, the amount of water available for drinking, bathing, washing, farming and industry, allergen production, and infection exposure. These changes then contribute to the increasing burden of disease at a global level, especially in vulnerable populations. Vulnerabilities to climate change increase with political conflicts, dependence on natural resources, and the amount of resources available for adapting to new health risks and challenges. In an assessment of risks to health from climate change (Health Canada, 2008) eight significant health concerns for Canadians were identified: o temperature-related morbidity and mortality (illness and death due to changes in temperature) o vector-borne diseases (diseases carried by insects such as mosquitoes and ticks) o health effects related to air pollution o health effects of extreme weather events o water- and food-borne contamination o exposure to ultraviolet rays o population vulnerabilities in rural and urban communities o socio-economic impacts on community health and well-being The most vulnerable Canadians include children, seniors, people with pre-existing illnsses, and Canada's northern Aboriginal population.
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In addition to the impacts mentioned above, the following points provide additional weight for the need to adapt to changes (Health Canada, 2008): o The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2007, confirms that climate change is occurring and impacting a range of natural and human systems both within and outside of Canada. o Northerners are already reporting environmental changes and corresponding risks to health and well-being, and are taking many actions to adapt. Key vulnerabilities exist where individuals or communities in the North are already highly exposed to health risks, and where exposure is likely to increase. o Adaptation can reduce health risks posed by climate change by providing citizens with the knowledge, tools, and confidence needed to take protective actions. Measures to protect health should be tailored to meet the needs of the most vulnerable Canadiansseniors, children and infants, the socially disadvantaged, and the chronically ill. o Barriers to adaptation exist in Canada. They include an incomplete knowledge of health risks, uneven access to protective measures, limited awareness of best adaptation practices to protect health, and constraints on the ability of decision makers to strengthen existing health protection programs or implement new ones. o Adaptive capacityour ability to implement new measures to reduce the risk that climate change can pose to healthis not evenly distributed among communities in Canada. Small communities often have less capacity to plan for or cope with the effects of extreme events or health emergencies. Institutional response: o The health sector needs to maintain current efforts and engage other government departments such as environment and natural resources, as well as industries and community organizations in their plans for future programs. o Regional- and community-level assessments of health vulnerabilities that identify current and future risks are needed to make adaptation effective. o Multi-disciplinary research across sciences and social sciences and collaborations across all levels of government can build the knowledge base on vulnerabilities to climate change to address existing adaptation gaps.
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Climate change is not the only 21st-century health risk. Health will be affected by the interaction of rapid industrialization and urbanization, the unsustainable use of natural resources, and population growth, in addition to environmental changes due to climate change, ozone depletion, desertification/deforestation, and the loss of biodiversity (Pronczuk and Surdu, 2008). In addition, these global changes could worsen many populations' health problems caused by malnutrition, poor sanitation, and infectious diseases.
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COBWEB stands for Complexity and Organized Behaviour Within Environmental Bounds. It is a program that allows you to build your own virtual ecosystem. COBWEB was developed to study how complex systems adapt to changes in their environment. Studying changes in real ecosystems is very difficult, if not impossible to do. It requires decades of observing, from which conclusions can be drawn about the impact of change. But now that the environment is changing quickly, we need a way to understand how changes might occur without waiting for them to happen.
COBWEB and Understanding Systems

A system is more than the sum of its parts. That basic statement uncovers the fact that in a dynamic system new properties emerge over time that are unpredictable. The Earth's systems are changing in response to changes in climate. This means that new, unpredictable properties might emerge in Earth's systems as a result of climate change that will require us to adapt in ways that we cannot foresee. Ultimately, COBWEB's purpose is to create an evolutionary system complex enough to generate emergent and unexpected resultsto reveal information and trends that would be otherwise unattainable. COBWEB was designed as a simplified environment to represent ecosystems or socio-economic systems. Although much of the detail of any particular system is not in the software, the generality provides a high degree of flexibility for representing the characteristics of many systems. The version of COBWEB that is available with this package has several features that allow it to be used for investigations. Health care links the atmosphere to society, science, governing institutions, and politics; it is truly a complex system.
What are the main components of COBWEB?

The software contains two major components: 1. A population of agents that move, eat, and reproduce 2. The resources that the agents consume, which are also variable in location
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The software simulates how individuals, called autonomous agents, make decisions and then computes how this affects the capacity for a population to adapt to variability and changes in the environment. Parameters such as energy expenditure, resource growth rate, energy requirements for different actions, and the energy derived from different resources, are all accessed through a user interface that is very easy to use. Once the abiotic and biotic factors have been set, the environment is displayed graphically. The ecosystem created by the program consists of a two-dimensional grid populated by coloured isosceles triangles, black squares, and coloured squares. In an ecosystem, living things are called organisms. In COBWEB, organisms are called agents. Agents move around, reproduce, and bump into thingsjust like any organism. Every time they turn or move they use some of their energy. They get more energy by eating food. In COBWEB, there are four agentsyellow, blue, green, and red. Each agent has a favourite food. The agents are represented as triangles whose tallest apex indicates the direction they are facing; the black squares are abiotic factors simulating obstacles like stones, which block the agents; and the coloured squares are biotic factors like food for energy, which the agents seek. In combination with optional communication between agents and memory, the population adapts to some environments and fails to adapt in others. This process can result in the occurrence of surprising events, whether it is a sudden extinction after a long period of stability, a recovery from what appears to be certain extinction, or a sudden change in population for no apparent reason. These surprising events can be expected in any complex system, and their occurrence in this simple abstraction of complexity is a very important aspect of COBWEB software.
Artificial Intelligence
The COBWEB agents are powered by an artificial intelligence tool called a genetic algorithm, which is a behavioural strategy. The resources are simulated with another common artificial intelligence tool, a cellular automaton. A genetic algorithm is a computer algorithm which, through a process of continual selection, random mutation, and recombination, evolves a collection of strings of data in a direction determined by the nature of the selection.
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Agents are not given goals, fears, navigation algorithms, or plans for survival. Rather, their genetic algorithms are initialized to random values, and by natural selection (since there are limited resources). Agents that are not well adapted to survival are eliminated. COBWEB's agents slide around their two-dimensional world in a non-deterministic way, doing whatever their genetic algorithms dictate.
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The population evolves in a Darwinian sense, as those agents that are best adapted to the environment tend to reproduce most often. Through mutation during reproduction (the rate of which can be controlled by the user), the system can experiment with new strategies. The agents that are not well adapted to survival are eliminated during the simulation. The user has the option to change the environment in small or large increments at any time during the simulation in order to test the adaptability of the population to change.
The agents can see up to 4 squares ahead and, based on this, they make decisions on when to move, where to move, and when to eat.
An agent moving up
An agent moving right
Abiotic factor: blocking stone
Biotic factor: food for energy
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COBWEB is an ideal tool to study and learn about complexity. Although it is a sophisticated program, it is visual and fun to use in an educational or research setting. COBWEB exercises can be integrated into the first part of the package, but this can also be left to the workshop component of the curriculum package. The Workshop provides instruction for the students in using COBWEB to look at health and climate change and provides sufficient introduction to using COBWEB for a final exercise. COBWEB is an advanced simulation platform, rarely offered to students and teachers. Although the experiments included with this package focus on health applications, COBWEB can be used for a much broader range of applications both within and outside of this curriculum. For example, it has found application to the sustainable development curriculum in one high school in the Grade 9 science program, and in another high school, it is being used to study evolution in one Grade 11 Biology class. Outside of class, students can use COBWEB for Science Fair projects two high school students respectively earned a gold medal for a health simulation and a bronze medal for an anthropological study with COBWEB and within the Environmental Studies project in the University of Toronto High School Mentorship Program that is offered to students in Grades 11 and 12 at the University of Toronto.
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As a teaching and learning tool, COBWEB is very flexible. It provides a means to generate questions and obtain answers to those questions that may help understand ecosystems in ways that observation alone could never provide. It can illustrate how environmental changes affect social and biological systems. By adjusting the initial abiotic and biotic factors, the user can explore themes such as survivorship, population growth, resource variability, drought, and the costs of energy and cheating. Users can explore specific issues such as landscape dynamics (how different populations affect the growth of different plants), invasive species, fertilization, social isolation and the emergence of group behaviour. COBWEB allows us to explore how components of systems (e.g. people, animals, and bacteria) may adapt to environmental change and environmental variability. In the field of climate change science, this response is called adaptation. In order to appreciate the role of COBWEB in studying adaptation, several exercises have been included in the first part of the curriculum. Although it is not necessary to complete every exercise with the class, the greater the familiarity with the content presented in Part 1, the greater the learning will be while experimenting during the workshop in Part 2. Some of the activities provide time for students to play with concepts of systems. Though worksheets accompany the activities, they have been provided to focus learning and were intended as formative in nature. Summative tasks are presented in Part 3.
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Teachers of science, geography, and biology will find lessons in this package pertinent to their curricula listed in the chart below.
Grade 10 (SNC2D)
ll o analyse some of the effects of climate change around the world, and assess the effectiveness of initiatives that attempt to address the issue of climate chang o investigate various natural and human factors that influence Earths climate and climate change o demonstrate an understanding of natural and human factors, including the greenhouse effect, that influence Earths climate and contribute to climate change
Science: Climate change
Grade 11 (CGF3M)
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Physical Geography: Patterns, Processes, and Interactions
o analyse the causes and consequences of climate change o analyse how changes in natural systems are caused by natural phenomena o explain how human uses of the earth, especially uses involving technology, cause changes over time in natural systems o explain how the earth provides both a habitat for life and a resource for society o evaluate the impact of natural systems on people and their activities o evaluate the impact of human life on the environment o explain the importance of stewardship and sustainability as guiding principles for human use of the physical environment
Grade 12 (CGR4M)
Geography: Environment and Resource Management
o explain significant short-term and long-term effects of human activity on the natural environment o analyse and evaluate interrelationships among the environment, the economy, and society o analyse patterns of resource availability and use o analyse environmental and resource management issues and explain their global implications o explain how population growth affects the sustainability of global ecosystems o evaluate the effectiveness of the efforts of the international community to deal with environmental and resource management issues o evaluate the impact of economic, social, political, and technological change on natural and human systems o explain the purpose of environmental laws and regulations at the local, provincial, and national levels and evaluate their effectiveness over time o evaluate a variety of approaches to resolving environmental and resource management concerns on a local, regional, and national scale
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Gr 11 (SBI3U1)
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Biology: Evolution
o Evaluate the possible impact of an environmental change on natural selection and on the vulnerability of species (e.g., adaptation to environmental changes can affect reproductive success of an organism). o Use a research process to investigate some of the key factors that affect the evolutionary process (e.g., genetic mutations, selective pressures, environmental stresses). o Explain the process of adaptation of individual organisms to their environment (e.g., some diseasecausing bacteria in a bacterial population can survive exposure to antibiotics due to slight genetic variations from the rest of the population, which allows successful surviving bacteria to pass on antibiotic resistance to the next generation). o Define the concept of speciation, and explain the process by which new species are formed. o Investigate, through a case study or computer simulation, the processes of natural selection and artificial selection (e.g., selective breeding, antibiotic resistance in microorganisms), and analyse the different by which they occur.
Gr 11 (SBI3U1)
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Biology: Diversity of Living Things
o Explain why biodiversity is important to maintaining viable ecosystems (e.g., biodiversity helps increase resilience to stress and resistance to disease or invading species) o Analyse the impact that climate change might have on the diversity of living things (e.g., rising temperatures can result in habitat loss or expansion; changing rainfall levels can cause drought or flooding of habitats)
Grade 12 (SBI4U)
Biology: Population Dynamics
o use appropriate terminology related to population dynamics, including, but not limited to: carrying capacity, population growth, population cycle, fecundity and mortality o use conceptual and mathematical population growth models to calculate the growth and populations of various species in an ecosystem (e.g., use the concept of exponential, sigmoid, and sinusoidal growth to estimate the sizes of various populations) o determine, through laboratory inquiry or using computer simulations, the characteristics of population growth of two different populations (e.g., the different cycles of a predator and its prey; the population cycles of two populations that compete for food; the increase of Aboriginal compared to non-Aboriginal populations and the significant difference in average age between the two groups) o explain the concepts of interaction (e.g., competition, predation, defence mechanism, symbiotic relationship, parasitic relationship) between different species o describe the characteristics of a given population, such as its growth, density (e.g., fecundity, mortality), distribution, and minimum viable size o explain factors such as carrying capacity, fecundity, density, and predation that cause fluctuation in populations, and analyze the fluctuation in the population of a species of plant, wild animal, or microorganism o explain the concept of energy transfer in a human population in terms of flow of food energy in the production, distribution, and use of food resources o explain how a change in one population in an aquatic or terrestrial ecosystem can affect the entire hierarchy of living things in that system (e.g., how the disappearance of crayfish from a lake causes a decrease in the bass population of the lake; how the disappearance of beaver from an ecosystem causes a decrease in the wolf population in that ecosystem)
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The first activity in Part 1 involves students in reading a collection of brief articles about climate change through the lens of health. As a lead-up to their workshop and experiments with the COBWEB software, the second activity introduces students to computer simulations and a cellular automaton through an introductory game called the Game of Life. The third and fourth activities involve students in thinking and learning about systemshow they are interconnected, dynamic, and self-organizing. These activities can be done before the Workshop or be included as part of the Workshop. They involve movement and require a fairly large space free of obstructions.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
BLM 1.1.1
Reading
Tropical diseases in Canada?

Many scientists have been sending a warning for years that climate change would increase the spread of diseases. How closely have weand our governmentsbeen listening? Carriers of diseases, such as mosquitoes, ticks, mice, among others, are very sensitive to changes in temperature. They are surviving seasonal die-offs because of warmer winters. The carriers are also moving into areas that were previously too cold for their survival. For example, malaria is reaching populations at higher elevations in Africa and Latin America where, before, the disease-carrying mosquitoes could not survive. Some scientists also report that climate change can increase the spread of cholera, a waterborne disease, by warming seas and creating patterns of rainfall that increase flooding. In 1991, cholera emerged in Peru, South America, for the first time in the 20th century. It quickly spread to other Latin American countries, including Mexico. Poor water supplies, overcrowding, and insufficient sanitation in poor areas help to spread the disease. Other diseases are also on the move: dengue fever and Lyme disease are moving north. In Sweden, cases of tick-borne encephalitis have risen in direct correlation to warmer winters. Asian tiger mosquitoes, which carry dengue fever, have been reported in the Netherlands. West Nile virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, was first detected in North America in 1999. It came to New York, probably through LaGuardia Airport, and probably from a mosquito on the plane or in the bloodstream of an infected person. Since then, in the United States and Canada, there have been more than 21 000 reported cases of West Nile virus, and it has killed more than 800 people. Some scientists are reluctant to make a direct link between climate change and disease spread because there are so many uncertain factors related to the spread of diseasesuch as yearly climate swings, the quality of public health systems, and population movement. And some scientists see climate change as a natural cycle that will reverse itself. But a report called Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change by the University College, London says The epidemiological outcome of climate change on disease patterns worldwide will be profound, especially in developing countries where existing vulnerabilities to poor health remain. The issues are complex, but there is an urgent need to develop a better understanding of the impacts of climate change on nations' public health systems and their vulnerability to infectious diseases.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
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BLM 1.1.2
Reading
Lyme disease is an illness caused by a bacterium that is spread to humans by the bite of infected ticks. Its symptoms include a bull's-eye-shaped rash, fever, chills, fatigue, joint pain, and headache. Without treatment, the infection can spread to the heart and nervous system, and it can become chronic, or long-term. The disease is treated with antibiotics. The disease was first fully identified in 1975, in Lyme, Connecticut. In Canada, there are identified, established populations of western blacklegged ticks in British Columbia and blacklegged ticks (often called deer ticks) in eastern and southern Ontario and parts of Manitoba and Nova Scotia. But research has shown that new populations of ticks are being found in all areas of Canada, presumed to have been brought there by migrating birds. However, not all the ticks are infected with Lyme disease, During migration, birds make stops at landfalls that are close to large bodies of water for refueling. In southern Ontario, Point Pelee National Park is one such landfall. In Toronto, the lakeshore, Toronto Islands, and Leslie St. Spit are all resting areas for birdsbirds that could be carrying ticks infected with Lyme disease. The Public Health Agency of Canada has been studying tick populations in Canada. Scientists want to identify precisely where Lyme disease is showing up in Canada. They also want to know more about the impact of climate change on the potential range of the disease. Scientists and health officials are concerned that, with milder winters, the ticks could survive in areas where they once could not, such as farther north. Ticks are cold-blooded, meaning that their body temperature is determined by the air temperature. Warmer air temperatures could speed up the ticks' rate of development and could also mean that they could survive Canadian winters. Continued research will help scientists understand the occurrence of Lyme disease, while ongoing awareness and reporting will help with the treatment of the disease.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
BLM 1.1.3
Reading
In many areas of southeastern Australia, people aren't surprised by temperatures of over 40C for two or three days in a row in the summer months of January and February. But January 25, 2009, marked the beginning of a searing heat wave that lasted a week and broke a number of temperature records. The island of Tasmania had its highest ever temperature: 42.4C. The city of Melbourne had its highest ever temperature: 46.4C. The city of Adelaide reached its third-highest temperature: 45.7C. The cities of Adelaide and Melbourne broke records for the most consecutive days over 40C (Adelaide over 45C and Melbourne over 46C). In Kyancutta, South Australia, the temperature reached 48.2C. The scorching heat caused an array of serious problems, including power outages due to explosions and strain on the electricity grid and loss of train service due to buckled tracks. In Melbourne, when the power went out, commuters were stuck on trains and electric trams for hours in the sweltering heat. With the power outages, traffic lights failed. Air conditioners were unusable. Children were sent home from schools. Koalas were dehydrated and flying foxes and birds fell dead out of trees on the hottest days. Even the night-time temperatures brought little relief, as they dropped only slightly. The heat wave took its toll on the population's most vulnerablethe elderly and the chronically ill. It is not possible to say how many deaths were caused by the heat wave, but the state of Victoria's death toll had a 62 percent increase from the same time the year before. Paramedics answered nearly three times as many heart-attack calls. In Adelaide, South Australia, 23 sudden deaths were reported on Friday, January 30, the day the temperature soared to 43C. Only 2 sudden deaths had occurred the previous Friday. The heat wave's soaring temperatures caused bone-dry conditions, which, along with strong winds, led to the state of Victoria's bushfires on February 7, in which 173 people died and more than 1800 homes were destroyed.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
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BLM 1.1.4
Reading
In July 2007, a brutal heat wave may have contributed to the deaths of an estimated 500 people in Hungary. In June of the same year, more than 35 people died in Romania, Turkey, and Greece when temperatures reached 46C. In Greece he heat wave lasted a week. Four years earlier in Europe, in August 2003, a heat wave struck and led to the deaths of tens of thousands of peoplesome estimates say as many as 35,000 lives. France alone had over 14,000 people die. The unusually high temperatures stayed for almost two weeks. August 2003 was the hottest August on record in the northern hemisphere. Temperature records were broken: France had seven days of temperatures over 40C. Britain hit a record-breaking 38.5C; Germany reached 40.3C; Switzerland 41.5C. Heat waves mostly affect the elderly, the chronically ill, and the very young. The high temperatures can put the body's organs at risk, and lead to strokes and heart attacks. What are other effects of heat waves like this? Power outages occur because of overloaded electricity grids from air conditioning use. Wildfires erupt because of hot, dry conditions. Crops wither and livestock suffers. Ponds dry up, killing fish. Wildlife suffers. With prolonged drought, water levels in rivers drop, killing wildlife and sometimes stranding ships and barges. Train tracks can warp and buckle and highways can swell, slowing transportation.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
BLM 1.1.5
Reading
Vector-borne diseases are prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical countries, and are rare in temperate zones. But climate change, scientists are finding, can affect the range and transmissions of these types of diseases. First, what is a vector-borne disease? Vectors are the transmitters of disease-causing organisms. Vectors are usually arthropods (invertebrate animals), such as mosquitoes, ticks, tsetse flies, and some crustaceans. Diseases that spread because of bites or stings from infected vectors are called vector-borne diseases. Vectors are very sensitive to factors such as temperature, surface water, humidity, wind, soil moisture, and changes in the range of forested areas. Changes in weather patterns (rise in temperatures, rainfall patterns) would affect how far vectors could travel, how long they could live, and their numbers, or intensity. Generally speaking, increased warmth and moisture would increase the transmission of vector-borne diseases. However, scientists note that climate-related changes could also mean reductions in some areas. It should be noted that the ability to control the vector-borne diseases may also increase; for example, new or improved vaccines may be developed. The chart below shows data for the major vector-borne diseases which are likely or very likely to have altered distributions. The chart shows estimates of numbers of people at risk, and current areas of distribution of the diseases.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
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BLM 1.1.6
Reading . page 1 of 2
Dengue Fever
Dengue fever is an infectious disease causing flu-like symptoms and is found in tropical and subtropical areas. It is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, severe headache, muscle and joint pain, and rash. Dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome are more severe forms of the disease. A warmer climate increases occurrences of vector-borne tropical diseases. The figure below depicts weeks of potential dengue transmission in selected North America cities for three temperatures: current temperature, 2C warming, and 4C warming. Note that presence of the dengue virus, mosquito as vector, and exposed human populations are required for disease transmission.
Source: The Regional Impacts of Climate Change, IPCC, 1998.
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
Malaria
Reading . page 2 of 2
Malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions. Symptoms include fever, shivering, sweating, joint pain, anemia, vomiting, convulsions, and retinal damage. Plasmodium vivax, with the Anopheles mosquito as a vector, is an organism that causes malaria. The main climate factors that can affect the potential of malarial transmission via the mosquito population are temperature and precipitation. Assessments of the potential impact of global climate change on the incidence of malaria suggest a widespread increase of risk as the areas suitable for malaria transmission expand/grow. Predictions suggest that the increase would be highest at the borders of areas where malaria usually occurs and at higher altitudes within malaria areas. The changes in malaria risk must be interpreted with a number of factors in mind, such as local environment conditions, socioeconomic development, existing malaria control programs or capabilities. The incidence of infection is sensitive to climate changes in areas of Southeast Asia, South America and parts of Africa. In these areas the number of years of healthy life might decrease significantly. The shaded areas show the present range of malaria. The very dark areas show the possible new range based on a climate change scenario for 2050.
Source: UNEP/GRID-Arendal
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
C O BW E B
BLM 1.1.7
Notes
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PART 1
Before Using COBWEB
ACTIVITY 1.2
Time: 1 period
Overview
Students are introduced to a basic computer program that provides insights into the behaviour of complex biological systems. This serves as an introduction to the concept of cellular automata which underlies the COBWEB simulation.
Background
John Conway is a famous mathematician who was born in Liverpool, England, in 1937. He particularly enjoyed inventing all kinds of fun math games; one of the most famous of these games is the Game of Life. This game was invented in the sixties, and in 1970 it became very popular after being published in Scientific American. Conway's Game of Life is a game played on a checkered board. Only a small part of the board is shown at once, though the board is considered to be infinite. Each square on the board is called a cell. A cell can be in a state of life or death. A circle is drawn in cells that are living, and cells that are dead are left empty.
A cellular automaton is a collection of coloured cells on a grid that evolves through a number of discrete time steps called iterations or generations according to a set of rules based on the states of neighbouring cells. The rules are then applied over and over again for as many time steps as desired. Cellular automata were studied in the 1950s when scientists and mathematicians were looking for ways to model complex biological systems. Conway's Game of Life is a popular example of a type of cellular automaton.
A live cell A dead cell
t BLMs for this Activity BLM 1.2.1 BLM 1.2.2 BLM 1.2.3 BLM 1.2.4 Learning Conway's Game of Life Applying the Rules of the Game of Life: Worksheet Simple Rules Lead to Complicated Patterns Simple Rules Lead to Complicated Patterns: Worksheet
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Planning Notes
Ensure that you have access to computers for this activity. Check to ensure that you have access to a website that includes Conways Game of Life. Here are some examples:
o o
http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/
Read the background information and review the blackline masters. Decide how you want to pair or group students. Make copies of the blackline masters you want to hand out to students.
Prior Knowledge
Students should understand what it means to apply a rule iteratively. One can use the Fibonacci Sequence as a very simple example (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13). t Teaching/Learning Strategies 1. Ask students to list some games that they play that are based on very simple rules. Ask them to explain the key rules of the game. Ask students how they know these rules. 2. Introduce Conways Game of Life to students, using information from the Background (next page). Then hand out or display BLM 2.1 Learning Conways Game of Life and read it with students carefully to ensure that they understand the rules of this game. 3. Ask students to demonstrate their understanding by providing them with time to complete BLM 2.2 Applying the Rules of the Game of Life: Worksheet. 4. Return to the list of games that students brainstormed in question 1, above. Ask students to explain what the possible outcomes of the game are. In some games, there is a winner and a loser. In other games it is possible for all players to win, or for all players to lose. 5. Use BLM 2.3 Simple Rules Lead to Complicated Patterns to study with students the possible fates of the game, and BLM 2.4 Simple Rules Lead to Complicated Patterns: Worksheet to have them apply their learning.
Going Deeper
Some students might be fascinated by the applications of the Fibonacci Sequence, or Conways Game of Life. Invite them to explore this world further by directing them to some advanced websites: o o o http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/ http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CellularAutomaton.html http://ddi.cs.uni-potsdam.de/HyFISCH/Produzieren/lis_projekt/proj_ gamelife/ConwayScientificAmerican.htm
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BLM 1.2.1
In Conway's Game of Life, you need to understand the following definitions. t Definitions o Each square on the board is called a cell. o Each time the rules of the game are used a generation has evolved. o A live cell is a cell that contains a black circle. o A dead cell is a cell that does not contain a black circle. o The initial state is the first pattern created on the board.
The game starts in an initial state where some of the cells are alive and some are dead. In other words, some of the squares on the board have circles in them, and some are empty. The initial state is determined by the player.
Rules
In each generation, cells are born and die according to the following rules: 1. Birth A dead cell will be born (turn from dead to live) if it has exactly three living neighbours. Here is an example of birth: The state of the board before applying the birth rule:
This dead cell has 3 living neighbours, so it will be born in the next generation. This dead cell has 3 living neighbours, so it will be born in the next generation.
The state of the board after applying only the birth rule:
A circle was born in this cell.
A circle was born in this cell.
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2. Death A living cell will die in two cases:

If a cell has one or no neighbours, it will die from being lonely, or If a cell has four or more neighbors it will die from overpopulation. Here is an example of death: The state of the board before applying the death rule:
This living cell has only one living neighbour, so it will die from isolation in the next generation.
This living cell has four living neighbours, so it will die from overpopulation in the next generation.
The state of the board after applying only the death rule:
This cell died from overpopulation. This cell died from isolation.
The three remaining cells in this illustration stayed alive because each of them had either two or three neighbours. (You can check and see for yourself!)
3. Survival A live cell with two or three live neighbouring cells will survive for the next
generation. (Obviously, a dead cell will stay dead if it is not born.) Conway's Game of Life is a game in which patterns on a board change every generation. The changes that are made depend on the state of the board in the previous generation. In other words, we must calculate all of the changes that we need to make, i.e., all the births, deaths, and survivals on the whole board before we actually make the changes. This is very important, because otherwise the changes made on the board may not be correct.
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For example, observe the situation on the right. The three living cells on this board will die from isolation because they only have one or no neighbors. However, before they die, they give birth to two new cells, indicated on the grid by x, since each of these cells have three neighbors.
Therefore, the next generation will be as shown here.
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BLM 1.2.2
Worksheet
Apply the rules of the Game of Life twice to show what the cells will look like after two generations. Check your results with a partner. 1.
2.
3.
4.
Create your own pattern, and see what happens to it after two generations. Use an online computer version of the Game of Life to check your own results. 1.
2.
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BLM 1.2.3
When John Conway invented the game, he chose the rules of survival, death, and birth very carefully, after checking many other sets of rules. The first and less successful rules that he chose led to either too many deaths or too many births. The rules that we have just shown you, which were the rules that Conway chose in the end, turned out to be the most interesting.
Possible Fates in the Game of Life

Even though there are only a few, very simple rules, it is surprising to see how many complicated and interesting patterns can be obtained from them. An interesting topic related to the Game of Life is the possible fates of the life form (the life form is the pattern on the board). A fate is a pattern that is reached after several generations, or in other words, after applying the rules of the game many times. There are actually four different possible fates: a stable form, extinction, cyclic forms, and infinite forms that grow without limit. We will now examine each of these fates.
1. Stable form From a certain generation onwards, the pattern on the board does not change at all, and stays that way forever (even if we continue applying the rules of the game forever). The simplest example o f a stable form is a block (a 2 x 2 square). This form remains stable because, on one hand each cell has exactly three living neighbours, and o n the other hand there is no cell that can be born (there is no dead cell o n the board with more than two living neighbours). Since no cell is born, and no cell dies, this form will stay the same forever. 2. Extinction At a certain point, all the cells on the board die, and we are left with an empty board. A simple example is a board with one living cell on it. When we apply the rules of the game on this life form, this lonely cell will die from isolation. There are no cells that can be born; therefore we are left with an empty board, forever!
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3. Cyclic forms From a certain generation onwards, we will see that the life forms repeat themselves in a cyclic way forever. Cyclic forms can appear in different ways. Oscillators These are life forms that change from one generation to the other but repeat themselves at a certain point. Sometimes they return to the original form quickly, after two generations, and sometimes it takes more generations until the original form returns. The simplest example of an oscillating form is a blinkerthis is a form that alternates between vertical and horizontal rows of three living cells.
Gliders These are life forms that move on the board as time evolves.
Note that the form actually moves on the board diagonally (towards the left side, and downwards). In the fourth generation, we obtain the exact same shape as the first generation, except that it has moved one step down on the diagonal. If we continue to apply the rules on a never-ending (infinite) board, in every five generations the shape will look exactly the same, only in a different position on the board. Additionally, we can see that the number of cells is stable; there are five living cells in every generation. 4. Infinite forms In this fate of the Game of Life, the number of living cells in the form grows and grows infinitely (without limit), forever. Initially, Conway didn't believe this could happen, and therefore offered a prize of $50 to anyone who could prove or disprove the existence of such an infinite form. In November 1970, a group of researchers from MIT in Boston, Massachusetts, won the prize. Others have since been discovered. This is left for the interested reader to pursue independently.
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BLM 1.2.4
Worksheet
1. Use an online Game of Life to determine the fate of these patterns. This is/is not a stable form. Explanation: __________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
This is/is not a stable form. Explanation: __________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
2. Play with the Game of Life, in groups, until you discover a stable form with 6 live cells and with 8 live cells. Record your discoveries here. Take a walk and look at other groups' discoveries when you are done.
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3. These patterns become extinct. Use the rules to determine the fate of this pattern:
4. Use an online version of the Game of Life to complete the following: a. This pattern will be extinct after __________ generations.
b. This pattern will be extinct after __________ generations.
5. Use an online Game of Life to complete the following:
a. This form will get back to its original appearance after ________ generations.
b. This form will get back to its original appearance after ________ generations.
c. This form will get back to its original appearance after ________ generations.
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Time: 1 period
Overview
Students learn about the interconnectedness of global issues, such as climate change and health, and thereby, of systems. This activity can be done before the workshop or be included as part of the workshop.
BLM for this Activity

BLM 1.3.1 Global Issues Cards
Planning Notes
Read through the activity and decide on student groupings. Prepare copies of Global Issues Cards (BLM 3.1). Bring a large ball of yarn to class.
Teaching/Learning Strategies
1. Tell students they're going to do an activity that will help them see and experience how global issues are interconnected. 2. Have students stand in a circle. Pass out the Global Issues Cards, one per student, and keep one card for yourself. (If you have a large class, pair students and hand out one card per pair. They can stand in a circle, facing each other.) 3. Have the ball of yarn in your hands. Read aloud the global issue on your card and toss the ball of yarn to a student across the circle. 4. The student (or pair) with the yarn reads the global issue on his or her card and explains how it is connected to the issue you read. If the student(s) can't immediately see a connection, the rest of the group can respond. If no one can see a connection, the student(s) can pass and continue the activity. 5. When the student(s) with the yarn has finished, he or she holds onto the end of the yarn and tosses the ball of yarn to another student across the circle. The activity continues until everyone has caught the ball of yarn and is now holding onto the string of yarn. It should resemble a web.
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6. Have the last student throw the ball of yarn to you. Ask everyone to pull the string of yarn so mmmithe web is taught. Pull on your end of the yarn and ask who felt it. Ask other students to pull and see who felt it. If some do not feel the pull, try pulling a bit harder. 7. Ask students what the exercise, including the pulling of the yarn, symbolizes in terms of connections between global issues. 8. After collecting the cards and wrapping up the yarn, ask students to draw a web of 3-5 connections that they considered to be very strong. Ask them to explain the connections briefly in one or two sentences each. Ask them to write down the issues that would arise if a government wanted to launch a program to address only one of the issues that they have chosen to write about.
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ACTIVITY 1.3.1 Global Issues Cards POVERTY CONSUMPTION
POPULATION GROWTH
PEACE and CONFLICT
HUMAN MIGRATION
ENVIRONMENT
TECHNOLOGY
HEALTHCARE
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EDUCATION
FOOD
WATER
ECONOMICS
DISCRIMINATION
SUSTAINABILITY
HUMAN RIGHTS
GLOBAL WARMING
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GOVERNANCE
CULTURE
SOCIAL JUSTICE
BIODIVERSITY
NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCES
RENEWABLE RESOURCES
MEDIA
ENERGY USE
Adapted from Facing the Future: People and the Planet, 2006. www.facingthefuture.org
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ACTIVITY 1.4 Introduction to Systems

Overview
Time: 1 period
Students learn about the interconnected, dynamic, and self-organizing nature of systems. This activity can be done before the workshop or be included as part of the workshop.
Planning Notes
Arrange for time in the gym or an area of the schoolyard, or some other large, open space.
Teaching/Learning Activities
1. In this introductory activity, students learn about systems. Introduce the topic by explaining the following to students: Systems are more than the sum of their parts. New properties emerge that are very different than properties of the individual parts. This is obvious if one considers the case of waterits components are two gasesoxygen and hydrogenwhich, when placed in the same container, spontaneously combine to form a substance with completely new properties. These new properties are called emergent behaviours, in the language of systems. Emergent behaviours are evident in diverse systems, such as flocks of birds, schools of fish, and even the stock market. 2. Write this statement on the board: Systems are more than the sum of their parts. 3. Group students to brainstorm examples that support or illustrate the statement. If students have difficult generating ideas, ask them to think of a bicycle, a cake, a computer, or anything else that is made of parts. 4. Extend students thinking by examining the behaviour of collections of individuals (for example neighbourhoods, students in a high school, teams). 5. Show students a video on emergence from NOVA: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3410/03.htm
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6. Ask students to review some of the features of a system (e.g., a system has parts that work mnitogether; the parts of a system are interconnected; if you change one part of the system it affects the other parts; a system can be something in nature, human, or mechanical; the system can change if something is removed or added). 7. Tell students that the activity they are about to do will help them understand systems. 8. Have students stand in the open space you have chosen. They can stand wherever they wish. 9. Tell students to a) mentally select 2 other people in the group without indicating their choice and b) move so as to keep an equal distance between themselves and each of those 2 people they chose. Explain that this does not mean simply remaining at the midpoint between them. 10. Students begin to circulate, and each movement will trigger other movements. The movement may speed up for a while, then slow, then accelerate again, but it rarely reaches stasis. 11. Let the movement continue for 3 or 4 minutes. Then have a class discussion based on the following questions. What did you experience? What do you think the game meant? (students may have thought that the point of the game was to achieve no movement, but the game actually shows that self-regulating systems require constant internal activity or movement.). During this activity, were you more focused on your own movements, or on the movement of others? How aware were you of the whole group and what are the implications? What other systems can you think of that are interconnected the way this one was (human body, a natural habitat, a car)?
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Variations for the Activity

Isolate 2 students from the area while you are giving the instructions and then call them in while the activity is in process. Ask them to try to figure out what is happening. When the students discover or are told the reason for the people's movements, point out to students that observers would not be able to direct this process from the outside. The system's relations are too complex for anything but self-regulation. This lesson is an important reminder that we have to be careful about how we manage complex ecosystems. We should expect unforeseen consequences when we manage ecosystems. Invite 2-4 students (who are not playing the game) to walk quietly through the game while it is in process. Afterward, point out that the game was not disrupted or affected, because the players were moving solely in relation to each other. This models how, for example, humans can walk through a system like a natural habitat (a forest, a swampy area) and not disrupt its defining relations. Adapted from Facing the Future: People and the Planet, 2006. www.facingthefuture.org
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Introducing COBWEB to Students

With this curriculum package, the intent is that students are introduced to COBWEB through a workshop. The mechanics of the program will be explained to students during the workshop. However, you may wish to hold some preliminary introductory discussions of COBWEB with students. The first exercise can be conducted in class to familiarize the students with COBWEB before the workshop. Similarly, you may wish to review the information about COBWEB after the workshop. In either case, you could use the information below and the following seven pages as a display or a handout to read with them, or you could simply provide the following brief summary as an initial introduction.
An Overview of COBWEB COBWEB Operations COBWEB Workshops

o o o o
Activity 2.1 Activity 2.2 Activity 2.3 Activity 2.4
A Simple In-class Exercise to Introduce COBWEB Heat Emergency Simulation Generalist versus Specialist Simulation Predator-Prey and Vector-Borne Disease Simulation
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The information here will help you and your students undertake further experiments and simulations. When COBWEB is launched, it comes up with two windows. One is an interface that allows the user to manipulate the parameters of the program. The other contains the environment display.
Program Parameter Window

The Environment tab allows the user to manipulate the physical appearance of the grid. The Resources tab allows the user to manipulate the growth rate, depletion rate and other characteristics of the food resources that the program provides for the agents. The Agents tab allows manipulation of parameters that affect each individual agent such as the amount of energy it expends to move and how it may reproduce. The Food Web tab controls which agents can eat what resources. Additional explanation of the parameters is provided at the end of this section. Users may manipulate these parameters any way they wish. The four baselines on the website provide some guidance for starting values. If a parameter value is set too high, the program will not run properly. Once the parameter values are selected, click Save if you want to save the parameter file for future reference or so that the same combination of parameters can be used again without having to reinput all the values. If you do not wish to save a copy of the parameters, simply click OK. In both cases, the parameters window will close, leaving you with the environment window.
The Environment Window

The environment visible in the environment window is dictated by your choice of parameters; however, the food resources, stones, and agents are randomly placed in the environment grid. Food resources are represented by coloured squares, stones are represented by black squares, and agents are represented by triangles with coloured dots in the centre. The colour of the dot on the agent corresponds to its favourite food. The colours corresponding to the agent and food types in the parameters window are as follows:
Type 1 = yellow
Type 2 = blue
Type 3 = green
Type 4 = red
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To begin the simulation, click on the Resume button. The simulation will begin and you will be able to observe your agents moving about in the environment and the food resources grow and disappear. The Speed toggle allows you to control the speed of the simulation runs. The simulation proceeds more slowly as the toggle is moved to the right. COBWEB will run its simulation indefinitely, but if you would like to control the time step at which the simulation ceases, simply type the number of the time step you would like it to stop into the box left of the Resume button. This way you can see the agents move through one or more generations at a time. In order to run comparative experiments, it is important to set up a baseline parameter set that is reasonably stable and predictable. This requires some experimentation in itself. The parameters do not have units. They can be modified to reflect the behaviour of a known system or to try and produce other system-wide behaviours of interest. Usually, it is necessary to adjust the parameters beyond the initial settings to achieve a stable outcome (the population doesn't explode or crash over a period of a few thousand time steps). Once the baseline is set, it may be used to determine how changing each parameter affects the environment. Four default baselines are provided on the website. When exploring how different parameter changes affect the environment, it is often an effective strategy to test values first spread far apart and then narrow in on your range (responses) of interest. The strength of COBWEB is in its abstractness; it can be used to simulate anything from climate change to the development of cancer. It is also a good idea to test extremesas you may observe your environment switch from one stable state to another. Be creative!
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The COBWEB simulation can provide a record of the simulation results. This record is called a log file. To get a log file, click on Log under the File menu, and save your file (filename.xls) before the simulation is run. Log file output is in spreadsheet format, so it is best if you save it with the file extension of a spreadsheet such as Excel (.xls). When the simulation is complete, simply close the COBWEB window and open your log file if you would like to view it immediately. Log files provide the user with the following for each agent type for every time step, as well as totals for all agent types (referred to as a tick in the output).
Column of Output Tick FoodCount AgentCount AveAgentEnergy f AgentEnergy Num. Cheat Num. Coop
What It Is The number of the time steps the data were outputted for Total number of squares in the grid occupied by that agents favourite food Total number of agents for that type present in the grid The average amount of energy an agent of that type possesses (total energy/number of agents) The total amount of energy possessed by agents of that agent type For the Prisoners Dilemma game: the count of agents with the cheater strategy For the Prisoners Dilemma game: the count of agents with the cooperator strategy
NOTE: For Num. Cheat and Num. Coop: The default setting is cheater, so if the Prisoner's Dilemma option is not selected, the agent count and cheater columns will be identical. The agents will not play the Prisoner's Dilemma game, however, so the presence of these cheaters has no effect on the simulation.
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This section provides an overview of the options under the File and Edit menus of the main window.
File Menu
The File menu allows the user to create and edit parameter files as well as save output for each file run.
Option
Open t Create New Data Modify This File
What It Does
Clicking on Open will allow the user to select a pre-saved parameter file (with an .xml extension). This option allows the data to create a new parameter file as described in section 2.1. This will allow the user to edit the parameter file in the middle of a simulation. This is useful when wanting to change the growth rate of food or providing new resources to the agents. Keep Old Agents and Keep Old Array should be selected in the Environment window when using this option to prevent a new simulation
g
Save
environment from being generated in the middle of the trial. This allows you to save your current parameter settings as an .xml file that can be opened and used in subsequent simulation runs.
Log
t
Log saves a log file, but it must be saved prior to running the simulation in order to capture the data. Track agent will track and record the motion and decisions of a randomly chosen agent, outputted to a text file. This must also be saved prior to running the simulation in order to capture the data. Quit exits the program.
Track Agent
g
Quit
Edit Menu
The Edit menu allows a user to further customize the environment generated randomly. The Edit menu allows the user to add and remove stones, agents, and food resources from the grid. Choosing Select allows you to add and remove stones, agents, and food resources one by one. Clicking on an empty square will add whatever you have selected to that square, and clicking on a square where it already exists will remove it. If you would like to remove all of something, choose the appropriate Remove All option.
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ACTIVITY 2.1
Time: 1 period
Overview
In this exercise, the grid size is reduced considerably to give students a chance to see what is going on.
BLM for this activity

BLM 2.1.1 Part 1: Navigating the Simulation Grid BLM 2.1.2 Part 2 Graphing the Results BLM 2.1.3 Counting your Critters
Teaching /Learning Strategies

Ask students to follow the instructions of BLM 2.1.1 and 2.1.2. To save paper, have them follow you as you do it through a data projector or on a Smartboard.
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BLM 2.1.1
Lets begin with a simple experiment on a 6x6 grid. 1. 2. 3. Open the COBWEB Application (the .jar file). Click OK in the bottom right corner of the window. Under FILE, select OPEN. Open the file called Intro_6X6_Grid.xml. Click OK. Under FILE, select LOG. This way, data from your simulation will be saved into an Excel file. Your filename should be saved in an appropriate folder as instructed by your teacher. Call your filename Intro6X6.xls. Your grid should look like the one on the right. Before running the simulation, count the number of agents, and their favourite food sources (see BLM 2.1.3 Counting your Critters on page 54). Enter your counts in the first row. This data is called the initial conditions of the simulation. In this simulation, the food source is reduced every 40 ticks so that the agents food source changes just like it does during the winter. In the Stop at field, enter the number 20; adjust the speed of the simulation so that it is slower by clicking on the left arrow. Then click Resume to start the simulation. The name on the button will change to the word Pause; stop the simulation by clicking on the pause button. Recount the agents and their foods and record the data in your chart. Enter 40 in the Stop at field and then resume the simulation by clicking the Resume button. Again, notice that the Resume button has changed to a Pause button. Pause the simulation, and click on an agent. You should see the path that the agent took. Adjust the speed so that the simulation runs faster. Recount the agents and their foods. Repeat this for values of 60, 80, 200, 220, 400, and 420. Record the number of agents and their food sources each time. Then let the simulation run until it is over.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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8. What did you notice about the types of agents at the different stop points in the hh simulation? Do you think that you could have predicted the final result from what you saw at 420? Complex systems are often characterized by emergence, which implies that the system does something that cannot be deduced from adding up the parts rather, the result is a property of the whole system. Think about this property. Why do you think that you would have had difficulty in predicting the outcome of the simulation?
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BLM 2.1.2
Stopping COBWEB and entering the values on a worksheet can grow cumbersome. Fortunately, we do not have to do this for each experiment. COBWEB is programmed to store results in a format that can be read by a spreadsheet. 1. Open Microsoft Excel, and then open your Excel file (you called it Intro6X6.xls). 2. Select columns AC (ticks), AD (food count), and AE (agent count). Click on the first column heading in grey, hold down the CTRL key, and then select any additional columns by clicking on their headings. Once you click on a heading, the entire column should be highlighted. 3. Under the Insert Menu, select the CHART option. 4. Under Chart Type at the left, select the LINE option (third one down). Under Chart Sub-Types at the right, select the first box. Click FINISH.
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BLM 2.1.3
Name: ____________________________________________
Date: ___________________
Navigating the Simulation Grid

Record your counts in the chart below:
Graphing the Results

Make a sketch of agent populations below.
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ACTIVITY 2.2
Background
We can see from the literature and recent news that the frequency and severity of heat waves resulting in a heat emergency appear to be strongly correlated to climate change. As climate change continues to become more extreme, Health Canada predicts an increase in summer mortality (death) or morbidity (illness). Uncontrolled heat gain or hyperthermia at extreme temperatures can result in illness or death for at-risk population groups such as seniors, heart patients, and asthmatics. The health problems associated with extreme heat increase with longer periods of high temperatures. This is an important consideration for the planning and organization of health care in large urban areas and provinces and states. Budgeting of health care funding would be affected by the need for a system of public health notification for extreme heat or smog and by the increased demand for emergency services and patient care, especially for the elderly. The proportion of seniors in Canadian society is expected to increase from 13% in 2006 to 24.5% by 2036. The possible future result would be a dramatically increased mortality rate among the elderly population of Canada. The challenge is to allocate the resources needed to respond to the effects of increasingly frequent heat emergencies on a growing elderly population.
Parameters
1. On the Cobweb Application window under File, select Modify Current Data.
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2. Click on the Environment tab. Grid settings are Width 40, Height 40, and check wrap edges.
3. Click on the Agents tab. For Agent 1 only, set the following Agent Parameters to 2: Step Energy, Rock Bump Energy, Agent Bump Energy, Turn Right Energy, Turn Left Energy. 4. Click on the Temperature tab. Under Temperature Parameters, set Temperature Band 1 through 5 at 27. under Agent Preferences, set Preferred Temperature for Agent 1, 2, 3 and 4 at 20 set Difference Factor for Agent 1 at 2 and for Agent 2, 3, and 4 at 1 set Parameter at Step Energy for all Agents
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Build Your System

Once the above changes have been made, you are ready to log and run your ecosystem. Save your changes as heatwave.xml. Create a log file titled heatwavelog.xls.
Study Your System

Click Resume and run the ecosystem in 20 tick intervals by entering multiples of 20 in the Stop At box on the Cobweb Application window until you reach 100 steps. Do any of the Agents disappear? When do they disappear? Why are they disappearing? Continue to run the program to 1000 ticks without using the 20 tick intervals. Observe the behaviour of the Agents in your grid. 5. What pattern are you observing? Open the log file and create a line graph with the Tick Count (Column A) and Agent Count for each Agent. 1. Describe the shape of the line for each agent. 2. Explain the difference between the lines. 3. Which agent is most at risk in a heat wave situation? 1. 2. 3. 4.
Introduce a Change to Your System

One way to increase the survival of the at-risk agent is to provide a refuge from the heat; in the real world this would be an emergency cooling station that would be opened up during a heat wave. You can do this by modifying your parameters in a very simple way. On the Cobweb Application window under File, select Modify Current Data. Click on the Temperature tab and for Temperature Band 3 change the value to 20. This change will emulate an air conditioned refuge for the agents. Save As aircon.xml and create a log file and call it airconlog.xls. Click Resume and run the ecosystem to 1000 ticks.
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Predict the Impact of Your Change

Before you examine the contents of the log file, predict the results of your change on the population of the four agents. Commit your prediction to paper and have your teacher sign it before you run the program with the changes already made. Open the log file and create a line graph with the Tick Count (Column A) and Agent Count for each Agent.
Study Your New System

1. Describe the shape of the line for each agent. 2. Does any agent have an advantage or disadvantage when compared to the others?
Investigate Further
1. As the Minister of Health in your region, how would you reallocate money in your budget to deal with the problem of an increasing number of heat emergencies and an increasing number of at-risk population members? 2. What would happen if you have an extreme heat event beyond 30? (High temperatures of over 40 degrees have been experienced in the Okanagan Valley.) 3. Could you compensate for these extreme events by having more cooling stations? 4. Consider altering other aging parameters for the agents. Note the changes you make and comment on the changes in the behaviour of your agents.
Teacher Note
While running the Heatwave experiment the expected results are the loss of the most heat sensitive agent within 80 to 100 generations. This is the agent that would mimic the response of the more elderly members of a society. While running the AirCon experiment the expected results are the survival of all agents since they are all able to move into the zone of reduced temperature. The zone of lower temperature mimics an air conditioned sanctuary or cooling station during a heatwave, allowing the most heat vulnerable agents to survive.
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Activity 2.3
Introduction
In nature there are always trade-offs. We can speak of big brains (have obvious advantages but requires a lot of energy from food) and the immune system (protects us from infection but can also lead to anaphylaxis) as examples of trade-offswhich means there is never a free lunch. When speaking of feeding strategies, we can examine benefits and disadvantages of two types of feeding strategiesgeneralist and specialist. A rodent is an example of a generalist, whereas a panda bear is a famous example of a specialist. Is one strategy better than another? A generalist has a more diverse array of food available, and it is also more adaptable and flexible. Generalists can invade new territories successfully. However, a specialist is most likely to be more efficient in capturing its favourite food source. Specialists can out-compete generalists for a particular source of food. The problem may arise for the generalist if it is surrounded by different types of specialists and it is competing against them for resources. When we examine parasites, we see a tendency to specialize on hosts. This leads to an increased efficiency of the parasite as it can reduce its genetic load by losing irrelevant genetic information through mutations. However, this intimately ties the parasite to its host. Thus the disadvantage arises if the host population is adversely affected. Generalist parasites like West Nile virus can affect multiple hosts and can thus survive and reproduce even though one particular host may be absent from an ecosystem. In the following two of experiments, you will be analyzing the effectiveness of the generalist and specialist strategies and how this might change with climate change. What should emerge from these experiments is the concept that what may be advantageous in one scenario may be detrimental in anotherin other words, there are trade-offs to each strategy!
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Experiment A
Generalist vs Specialist Strategies in Relatively Low Food Production

Overview
In this simulation you will be examining the success rates of a generalist vs specialist feeding strategy. The organisms that will be feeding are termed agents (they are the triangles). The food is represented by the coloured squares. Agent 1 (yellow) has been set up as a generalist, and agent 4 (red) is a specialist. In the original scenario, the resources are equally distributed for the agents. This scenario has obvious ecological applications, but it has a number of social applications. For example, in hunting for a job, a generalist may be more versatile and adaptable to changing job conditions but will not be qualified for any task that requires an in-depth knowledge in a subject area. Our population may be able to maintain a high level of health as long as certain foods are available, but may not be able to adapt to a shortage of those foods, even though other substitutes are available. Here are some pre-lab questions to think about.
Pre-Lab Questions
1. Given that the generalist can eat a wider variety of food, but the specialist is the more efficient feeder, what will happen in a baseline run to the number of agents over time when food production is relatively low? 2. Can you think of several factors that would reduce or increase the number of generalists vs the number of specialists?
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Running the Generalist versus Specialist Simulation

Follow the steps below: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Open COBWEB Click OK (bottom right of screen) Click FILE Click OPEN and Select genvsspec2.xml and then double-click You will now see a window with several tabs. You will first be in the ENVIRONMENT TAB. In this tab the GRID should be set to an 80 x 80 format. Change the random seed to 4. Under the AI TAB, change this random seed to 4 as well, as shown below.
6. In the RESOURCES TAB the INITIAL AMOUNT of food is set to 20 per colour, which means you will start with 20 blue tiles, 20 red tile etc. The variable we will be manipulating is the growth rate, which is a measure of the quantity of food. Set all GROWTH RATE to 4, as shown below.
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7. Click OK (bottom right of the screen). 8. Click FILE, then click LOG, as shown below.
9. You will now set up your file for data analysis in a spread sheet. Select an appropriate name (i.e., genvsspecial1.xls). Note you will need a .xls extension. 10. Now run the simulation by hitting START. You can run the program for about 12000+ ticks. When you hit PAUSE the simulation will stop and you can now view your data. 11. Open the excel file you saved your data in. 12. You can graph the growth rates for Agent 1 and Agent 4 over time (ticks) and analyze any trends.
Post Simulation Questions for the Baseline

1. Discuss the trends observed in the baseline. How did the respective agents do? 2. Explain the growth rates of the different agents. Also, why is there a bit of a time lag before there was an increase in population size?
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Experiment B
Assessing the Optimal Feeding Strategy in a Changing Environment with Increasing Food Supplies
1. We will now modify this scenario and change all the FOOD GROWTH RATE to 6. The random seed under ENVIRONMENT TAB will be 42 this time. Also, change the random seed to 42 under the AI TAB. This will increase the availability of food. Once again, set up a log file (different name) to analyze your results. Run the simulation and collect your data. Graph the growth rates for Agent 1 and Agent 4. 2. Now modify the FOOD GROWTH RATE to 8. The random seed is still 42. Once again, setup a log file (different name) to analyze your results. Run the simulation and collect your data. Graph the growth rates for Agent 1 and Agent 4. 3. Now modify the FOOD GROWTH RATE to 10. The random seed is still 42. Once again, setup a log file (different name) to analyze your results. Run the simulation and collect your data. Graph the growth rates for Agent 1 and Agent 4. This graph should look similar to the one below.
Post Simulation Questions for Optimal Feeding Strategies in a Changing Environment

1. Compare the generalist versus feeding strategies in the environment with varying food growth rates. Discuss by referring to the graphs. 2. Suggest reasons for the differing success rates of the generalist and specialist strategies in these environments.
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Post Lab Questions

1. Based on your analysis what are the benefits and disadvantages of generalist vs specialist feeding strategies? 2. In our scenarios we set up an artificial division of specialist vs generalist. In real-life there w o u l d be a continuum from highly specialized species to less specialized species to fairly generalized species to highly generalized species. Research some examples of species that would display such a continuum from highly specialized to highly generalized species. 3. Climate change will lead to changes in certain ecosystems. Based on your analysis, what type of strategy (generalist or specialist) would generally be favoured in disturbed-changing environments? Explain your reasoning. 4. Research an emerging vector-borne disease and study its ecology. Summarize the reasons why this disease is spreading. Based on what you've read do you see generalist or specialist strategies (or both) in the agents involved? 5. Imagine a newly opened environment that is invaded by generalists. If we examined the environment over time, assuming it remained stable and assuming we waited a very, very long time, we would see a replacement of some or many of the generalists by specialists. Why would this happen?
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Activity 2.4
Vector-Borne Disease Simulation

Background
A vector population is one that acts as an intermediary host for a pathogen (i.e., a virus or bacteria) and can sustain the pathogen until it reaches a susceptible host population (i.e., a human or animal). Typically, vectors are infected arthropods like mosquitoes and ticks. Non- arthropod vectors can include rodents, certain bats, and species of wild bird. These populations can carry a variety of diseases from malaria to dengue to African sleeping sickness. These diseases are known as vector-borne diseases. Climate plays an important role in the range and distribution of vector populations. Many of the diseases mentioned are most common in tropical regions that fall in the home ranges of their carriers. However, climate change combined with an increase in invasive species due to global transportation of both goods and people and shipping practices has led to an expansion of these home ranges. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already noted evidence that the geographic ranges of ticks and mosquitoes have changed in response to climate change. Many of these species have been able to expand their ranges north and these populations bring with them any diseases that they may carry. One example of a vector-borne disease is West Nile Virus. It is named after the West Nile District of Uganda where the virus was first isolated from an adult in 1937. It first appeared in North America in New York City in 1999 and since then has spread throughout the United States and Canada. The virus is closely related to the viruses that cause dengue fever and yellow fever. Incidences of dengue fever have been reported in parts of the United States with the expansion of the range of its principal carrier, the Aedes aegypti mosquito. In this experiment, COBWEB is used to look at the effects of a vector-borne disease on a host population (Agent 1).
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Part A: Baseline Parameters

1. On the Cobweb Application window under File, select Modify Simulation.1 2. Click on the Environment tab. Grid settings are Width 30, Height 30, and check wrap edges. Make sure under Random variables Random Stones is 10, Random Variables is 42
3. Click on the Resources tab ensure that Depletion time is set at 300 for both Food 1 and Food 2.
1 Input files are provided for each experiment during the workshop. These instructions will assist students who want to continue working with this experiment in the following section of this document.
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4. Click on the Agents tab. Ensure that Agent Parameters match those of the screen below.
5. Click on the Food Web tab. Check Food 1 under the Agent 1 column and Food 2 under the Agent 2 column. Make sure the other boxes are unchecked.
6. Now click Save As and save it as Baseline.xml 7. The Simulation settings window will close and youll go back to the Main COBWEB window. 8. Log your results in Excel by going to File -> Log.. Save it as Baseline.xls
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9. Run the program to Stop at 25 000 ticks.
10. Once the program has finished running, find the excel file you created and open it. 11. Generate a line graph of Agent Counts for Agent 1 and Agent 2. Press and hold down CTL and select Column A, C, and K. See sample. What can you say about the two populations?
Part B: Introduce a Disease to Your System

In this part of the experiment you'll be adding a vector-borne disease to the baseline in Part A. Agent 2 is your vector population and the disease will affect the amount of energy that Agent 1 gets from its favorite food. 1. Click File -> Open and select your Baseline.xml file. 2. Click the Disease tab and make sure the parameters are the same as the one across.
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According to the disease parameters above, Agent 2's population starts off with 10% of the population initially infected. The disease can be passed between the two agent populations but Agent 1 is not capable of transmitting the disease to another Agent 1. Contact transmission rates are 70% and 50% respectively. Agent 2 is capable of passing the disease on to its offspring. In a vector-borne disease, the vector population itself is usually not affected by the disease. To simulate this, the parameter is not bound for Agent 2. Based on these disease parameters what are your predictions for the baseline now that a disease has been introduced? 3. Save this file as Disease.xml and log it in Excel as Disease.xls 4. Run this experiment to 25 000 ticks as well and generate a graph of both populations once it stops. How does this graph compare to the one you generated for Part A? Which population is affected by the disease? What are your predictions for both populations if you had run it longer?
5. If you have time after completing part C, run the experiment again until 40 000 ticks to see if your predictions are accurate.
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t Part C: Adaptations When dealing with vector-borne diseases, vaccinating the host population may not be a viable solution. Sometimes, the vector population (i.e., mosquitoes or rodents) needs to be controlled in order to reduce the spread of the disease. By altering food sources or targeting food sites with insecticides, we can affect mosquito and rodent populations. 1. Reopen the Disease.xml file and go to the Resources tab. Change food depletion time to 220 for Food 2.
2. Save this new input as Adaptation Food Depletion.xml and the log file as Adaptation Food miDepletion.xls 3. Run it to 25 000 again and open up the excel file once COBWEB has stopped. 4. Generate a graph to look at how the population numbers have been changing over time. (Hint: Press and hold down CTL and select Columns A, C and K) How has changing the depletion time affected Agent 2s population?
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During the summer, we are often advised to get rid of any standing water sources that mosquitoes may use to lay their eggs in. In order to illustrate this in COBWEB, we can simply increase the breed energy of Agent 2. By making breeding sites harder to find, you can expect that mosquitoes will spend more energy searching for breeding sites and thus increase their required breed energy. 1. Reopen your Disease.xml input file. 2. Under the Agents tab, change Agent 2s breed energy from 30 to 35.
3. Save your input file as Adaptation Breed Energy.xml and your log file as Adaptation Breed Energy.xls 4. Run your experiment to 25 000 ticks and use your Excel file to generate a graph of both populations.
Post Lab Questions

1. What does your graph look like? 2. Compare your graphs for Adaptation 1 and Adaptation 2. Which method seems to be more effective? Why do you think that is? 3. Can you think of any other adaptations that can be used to affect the spread of the disease? 4. How would you model West Nile virus on COBWEB (Hint: System has to include humans, birds, and mosquitoes)
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Following the workshop, students can undertake one or more exercises to reinforce and integrate the topics from Parts 1 and 2. The first possible activity is to have students expand upon or develop a new application with COBWEB. The second activity allows students to develop a public health adaptation policy to reduce nesting areas for mosquitoes in order to reduce the spread of vectorborne diseases such as West Nile virus. The third activity uses a modification of the Prisoner's Dilemma game and the free rider concept to illustrate how society makes choices during a smog alert, allowing the students to explore voluntary compliance, a regulatory approach, and incentives in developing adaptation policy. Activity 3.1 Activity 3.2 Further Experiments with COBWEB Stop the Bites: Develop an Adaptation Policy for Mosquito Control BLM 3.2.1 Stop the Bites: How Would You Tackle Mosquito Control? Explore Adaptations to Smog Advisories: A Game-Theoretic Approach BLM 3.3.1 Prisoner's Dilemma Worksheet 1 BLM 3.3.2 Prisoner's Dilemma Worksheet 2 Free Rider
Activity 3.3
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Activity 3.1
Time: 1-2 periods
Overview
In this activity, the students will take one of the simulations from the workshop and conduct further experimentation. In all experiments, students should also run the initial as well as the adaptation COBWEB simulation. The fourth section is an invitation for students to develop their own experiments.
Planning Notes
Read the Teaching/Learning strategies section to identify an appropriate follow-up activity.
Prior Knowledge
Many of the concepts included here find their origin in the theory of dynamic systems and chaos. Provide time to learn the concepts of randomness and sensitivity to initial conditions.
Teaching/Learning Strategies
Though each of the suggestions below is independent, they can be combined. 1. Ask students to verify the experimental results under randomness. It is not guaranteed that the simulation will always produce the same result, because COBWEB simulates a complex system from the actions of the each member of the population. To get a predictable result in the previous activities, the random seeds have been set to fixed values. In this section, students are asked to repeat each simulation from 10 to 30 times, varying one or both random seeds, individually and together. The random seeds control the allocation of strategies to the agents and the distribution of resources in the environment. Although the agents biology and the environmental change is the same, the geographic distribution of resources, barriers, and strategies is different. In fact, a set of different strategies may be introduced by changing the random seed. Students can observe which has a stronger impact on the result: those parts of the experiment that are fixed or those that are randomized.
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Students can consider several types of questions: Was the environment more or less important than the distribution of strategies? Which are more important, the fixed environmental and biological factors or the geographic distribution of resources and strategies? If you were creating a policy based on the results, would the observed differences be important in designing the policy? Why or why not? 2. Ask students to make minor changes to a simulation to determine sensitivity to initial conditions. The students can change any variable, but it is recommended that they change only one, and only in small increments. They might want to use the initial 6x6 simulation or begin with this simulation as it might be easier to understand the importance of different variables. Because the random seed is fixed, each experiment only need to be repeated once, but varying the random seed can be used in order to generate multiple results for each variation. (Note: In this section, please refrain from changing the variable that was changed in the workshop. That experiment is left for Section 3.) Based on the results of the experiment, have the students hypothesize as to which variables might be most important. Have each student select a different variable and, if appropriate, a different direction of change. Each student can hypothesize whether the result will change and whether the change will be small or dramatic. Students can keep increasing or decreasing their variable until they notice a large change in the results. If the result does not change, they can then change the variable more dramatically to produce a large change. This allows the student to work backwards to find the value that produces a large change, or to assess whether the changes are linear, i.e., a fixed change in population with each change in the variable. After each student has completed the experiments, two of the variables can be changed together. In some cases, they might cancel each other out; in other cases the change in the final results might be more dramatic.
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3. Ask students to study the impact of two or more variables simultaneously. Climate models predict a range of changes in global mean temperature, resulting in a range of possible future climates or scenarios. Climate models are often run in ensembles to analyze how combinations of variables interact. This means that the same greenhouse gas emission scenario is run with some other changes to try and account for various uncertainties. If the students are finding a range of results, how might this change an adaptation strategy? fff If the adaptation fails, students can experiment with the adaptation in order to assess whether that specific adaptation would indeed work would a new adaptation strategy be required under some changes or are there changes for which there are no viable adaptations? 4. Ask students to develop an original simulation. These can be based initially on the experiments in the workshop or can be totally original. Often, an idea for an original experiment will follow work with COBWEB in Sections 1, 2, and/or 3. Once the student has developed an experiment, it should be run with an adaptation. The student can then run the experiment under instructions of Section 1, 2, and/or 3.
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Activity 3.2
Time: 1-2 periods
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BLM 3.2.1
Scenario
Dengue fever, West Nile virus and other diseases that mosquitoes carry and transfer have been increasing and are expected to become future threats, with more people becoming infected from mosquitoes each year. After extensive consultation the government has determined that the best way to reduce the spread of these diseases is to reduce mosquito populations. As an expert on health and adaptation, the government has recruited you and your team to create and implement a policy targeting the mosquito population in residential areas in your community. The primary focus is to remove bodies of standing water from residential properties (primarily gutters, but you may want to consider other areas) so that the mosquito population will be reduced. While creating and implementing this policy there are various factors to take into consideration, which will be discussed below. You should be as detailed and comprehensive in your explanations and answers as possible.
Part 1
The Biology and Life Cycle of the Mosquito
What are some additional biological facts with respect to the life cycle of the mosquito to consider when determining the scope of the policy? Should your consider the life span of the mosquito? Are there considerations based upon the life cycle of the mosquitoes? Be sure that you address these factors (and any you discover) in answering each part of the question.
Part 2
Identifying Stakeholders
Stakeholders are the groups and individuals who are likely to be affected in some way by your newly invented policy. In developing the policy, it is important to keep their concerns in mind. Which stakeholders should be considered when creating your policy? Are there international and national groups? Are there any unique, local stakeholders to consider? Create as comprehensive a list as possible and be sure to use whatever resources are at your disposal to uncover potential stakeholders.
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Part 3
Framing Your Policy
Have you ever read an article and thought that it was biassed, or seemed to cause you to favour a particular person or group? The likelihood is that the article was framed so that you would understand the issue in a particular way, often by placing it in context. You are going to want to frame your policy in a way that will increase its acceptance and understanding by everyone involved in and affected by it. There are many ways to frame your policy and you are going to want to choose the one you feel will receive the most positive reception in your community. Some examples to consider: Focusing on the potential harm the diseases can cause. Presenting it as a protect your neighbours and family policy. Presenting it as a social responsibility to help remove mosquitoes. After you have identified the stakeholders, you should select those with whom you feel it is helpful to consult. Consulting with stakeholders will help you create a policy that is received more positively and is more effective in accomplishing the task. Be sure to explain why you have chosen certain stakeholders and not others.
Part 4
Compliance and Monitoring
The government uses both persuasion and utilizes many different levels degrees of coercion to ensure that people follow or comply with their policies. Some possibilities are: Encouraging people to opt in and have no punishment for those who do not. Making the policy compulsory for the entire community with fines for those who do not comply. Be sure to justify your choice. How will it ensure that people accept and comply with the rules? How are you going to monitor whether or not people are complying? Will you monitor at all? Be sure to consider the invasiveness of monitoring and what it will cost.
Part 5
Publicity
How are you going to publicize this policy? Are there special methods in your community to spread the information? How will you ensure that everyone knows about the new policy and how they can comply with it? Be creative and innovative in your methods of reaching the public, but do not neglect traditional means of communication, such as posters in public places.
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BLM 3.3
Overview
This activity uses a modification of the Prisoner's Dilemma game and the free rider concept to illustrate how society makes choices during a smog. Students are able to choose to drive or take a bus during the air quality advisory. At the end of the activity, with no intervening risks, most students will probably opt to drive as there are no material incentives for taking the bus. The activity can be varied by adding more risks or costs to the drivers, such as accidents, parking fines and speeding tickets. The activity illustrates how, without modification, a Prisoner's Dilemma set-up may favour a solution that is not a good adaptation to the problem.
Background
Smog alerts are expected to become more frequent under warmer temperatures if we do not find different ways to generate electricity, reduce energy consumption, and/or find alternatives to gasoline-powered automobiles. Vulnerable populations include asthmatics, people with other respiratory problems, seniors and young children. Smog advisories are issued by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment when smog conditions are expected to reach the poor category, which occurs when the air quality index reaches or exceeds 50. Smog is primarily composed of ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5 refer to two sizes of particles that are often monitored, as they both cause respiratory problems). Ground-level ozonenot the ozone layer in the stratosphere that protects us from harmful ultraviolet rays is a reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the presence of sunlight and is accelerated with by warmer temperatures. Hence, higher levels of ozone are typically observed from May through September, and this is of concern under the warmer temperatures that are expected during the 21st century as the climate changes.
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Fine particulate matter is both a result of chemical reactions in the atmosphere and direct emissions from pollutants that are emitted by coal-fired electricity generation, combustion of gasoline, and industrial activities. Higher PM levels can occur throughout the entire year, and on hot, sunny days, the higher PM levels persist through the day and the night. Ozone levels generally decrease at night. The pollutants comprising smog are produced locally but can also be transported into Ontario from the American mid-west. Pollutant levels are exacerbated when there is little wind.
Prisoners Dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, game that has been subjected to formal mathematical analysis. The classical PD game involves two people (called players) who commit some crime together. The police separate the suspects and then set them up to be opponents so that they will snitch on each other. The players must individually decide to either stay true to their partnership by remaining silent (cooperation) or tell on each other out (defect). The dilemma is created for them by the police, who define different consequences for their choices. There are four possible outcomes for their choices: 1. 2. 3. 4. They might both stay silent. They might both tell on each other. They first might be silent with the second telling on the first. The second might tell on the second, with the second remaining silent.
The best possible mutual outcome is for both players to spend 5 years in jail. But the temptation of telling on the other player with the hope that the other player remains silent leads each person to second guessing, since the consequence of cooperating (remaining silent) without being returned the favour is very high. In the original format, there were two prisoners and each was given a choice between telling on the other prisoner (who is assumed to be a friend) and remaining silent. The reward or punishment for the choice depended on the other prisoner's choice. Each reward has a name that describes the outcome.
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PART 3
Classic Prisoners Dilemma
Reward-Based Prisoners Dilemma Used in COBWEB Workshop
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PART 3
The Free Rider Game: Choosing the Car or Public Transit

1. In the second half of this activity, tell the students to imagine that they are going to do something they enjoy (a day at the beach, Canada's Wonderland, etc.). They can drive or take the bus. They get 8 points for driving and 6 for taking the bus. For most students, public transit will require a greater time commitment. 2. Place the class into partners. Give each pair of students a die or a pair of dice. (Instead of dice, you could have the students select numbers from a hat.) Hand out Prisoner's Dilemma Worksheet 2 Free Rider. 3. Tell students there are many rounds in this version. Explain that although our smog alerts currently might last 1 to 3 days, they are expected to last longer under the longer heat waves that are expected to occur in the 21st century. 4. After each round, one partner rolls the die or dice of the other to simulate the random events associated with driving and the impact of air pollution. Select a number or a range of numbers that will indicate that they have to go to the hospital for health problems due to the poor air quality. If the number of drivers is large, the range of numbers that result in a hospital visit should be larger. The students should see that as more and more people drive, the number of visits to the hospital increases. The number of points lost per visit should also increase with the number of visits. If the number of drivers is large, you may want to introduce parking fines, speeding tickets, fines for driving during a smog alert, or even accidents. Of course, the drivers would lose points for each fine or accident. Determine whether or not a fine or accident has occurred by having the driver's partner roll the dice. If the roll is equal to or greater than 8, then the driver has been in an accident or has been fined for driving during a smog alert. The penalty is entered under the fines/hospital column in the row for that round. You can run the exercise with and without the risk of punishment for the drivers to assess whether voluntary compliance is sufficient (this assumes that most students will use the car eventually, unless the rate of hospital admission is quite large). It is also interesting to see if new group behaviours emerge, such as the bus riders trying to exert pressure on the drivers to take the bus.
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Follow-up
Once the students have experienced the activity, they can work on designing a policy to implement during smog alerts. They should investigate the smog alert system now in place and whether the City should move toward mandatory restrictions on driving or the operation of lawn mowers or other yard equipment. Here are some questions that could be used in the assignment. 1. What does the City currently do during a smog alert or air quality advisory? 2. Does the current policy have provisions for mandatory restrictions? 3. If the City can implement mandatory restrictions, how will it enforce these restrictions? 4. Do you think that the current policy is adequate for longer and/or more frequent air quality advisories? 5. How would you change the policy to adapt to a future where air quality advisories might become longer and/or more frequent?
Further Research
In addition, or as an alternative, students could think about the layout of the City. Does the geography of the City favour the use of public transit, especially in getting to the activity/location that was used during the game, e.g., is it easy to get to Canada's Wonderland by public transit? What changes would the students consider to make public transit more convenient? This is an excellent exercise for discussing the relationship between land use, transportation, and air pollution.
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BLM 3.3.1
Worksheet 1
My Name: _________________________
My Partner's Name: _________________________
Our Consequence/Reward Matrix
Check off your choice for each round, either (a) or (b): _____ a) only before it is played _____ b) all at the same time before beginning the game
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BLM 3.3.2
Worksheet 2
Name: _________________________ As each round is played check off your transportation choice, subtract points for fines or hospital stays and tally up your score.
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Bird studies on Leslie Street Spit in Toronto reveal increase in Lyme disease. Toronto Star. Retrieved February 21, 2009, from http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/Environment/article/252129 CBC News. West Nile Virus Facts. Sept. 23, 2008. www.cbc.ca/news/background/westnile/ Ecologists question effects of climate change on infectious diseases. Apr. 3, 2009. Science Daily. Retrieved February 21, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070811220220.htm Facing the Future. People and the Planet, 2006. www.facingthefuture.org Health Canada. Human Health in a Changing Climate (CD): A Canadian Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Adaptive Capacity (Synthesis and Technical Reports) ordered from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/climat/eval/index-eng.php IPCC. The Regional Impacts of Climate Change, IPCC, 1998. Larsen, J. Record heat wave in Europe takes 35,000 lives. Earth Policy Institute, 2003. www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/Update29.htm Larsen, J. Setting the record straight Earth Policy Institute, 2006. www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update56.htm Mercer, P. Australia on health alert amid worst heat wave in a century. VOAnews.com, Jan. 28. 2009. www.voanews.com Nash, J. Global warming-induced heat waves, Oct. 14, 2008. www.articlesbase.com Ogden, N. Ixodes scapularis & Lyme disease spread in Canada: Climate change & migratory birds. www.viu.ca/cch/aded/documents/OgdenBirdsnLyme2005.ppt
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Potential dengue transmission in case of temperature rise. UNEP/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics Library. 2000. UNEP/GRID-Arendal. 1 Feb 2009 http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/potential_dengue_transmission_in_case_of_temperature_rise Pronczuk, J., & Surdu, S. (2008). Children's environmental health in the twenty-first century. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1140(1), 143154. The spread of cholera 1950-2004. http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/the-spread-of-cholera1950-2004 Struck, D. Climate change drives disease to new territory. Washington Post. May 5, 2006. Retrieved February 21, 2009, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/05/04/AR2006050401931.html Wallace, R., and Walker, J. Heatwave killed 347 people in one week. The Australian, April 07, 2009. World Health Organization. Climate change and infectious diseases http://www.who.int/globalchange/climate/summary/en/index5.html
Video: Emergence. NOVA, PBS, 2007. A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram. Wolfram Media, 2002. See www.wolframscience.com Wheels, Life, and Other Mathematical Amusements by Martin Gardner. W.H. Freeman, 1983.
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TDSB 'Cobweb' Curriculum

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An Introduction to Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, Complexity, and the Cobweb Simulation Platform

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2011 Toronto District School Board

Specific objectives include:

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COBWEB and Understanding Systems

What are the main components of COBWEB?

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2011 Toronto District School Board

An agent moving right

Abiotic factor: blocking stone

Biotic factor: food for energy

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2011 Toronto District School Board

2011 Toronto District School Board

Science: Climate change

Physical Geography: Patterns, Processes, and Interactions

Geography: Environment and Resource Management

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Biology: Diversity of Living Things

Biology: Population Dynamics

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2011 Toronto District School Board

Before Using COBWEB

Tropical diseases in Canada?

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Source: The Regional Impacts of Climate Change, IPCC, 1998.

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Before Using COBWEB

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A live cell A dead cell

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Before Using COBWEB

A circle was born in this cell.

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Before Using COBWEB

2. Death A living cell will die in two cases:

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Before Using COBWEB

Therefore, the next generation will be as shown here.

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Possible Fates in the Game of Life

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Before Using COBWEB

This is/is not a stable form. Explanation: ____________

This is/is not a stable form. Explanation: ____________

This is/is not a stable form. Explanation: ____________