9358519 Resnick During the past decade, there has been a surge of scientific interest in how complex phenomena can arise from simple components and simple interactions. The study of complex systems raises not only scientific questions, but also educational and epistemological questions: Must people develop new ways of thinking in order to make sense of complex phenomena? And if so, what types of tools and activities can engage students in thinking about complex systems in new ways? I propose to develop a set of new computational tools to enable pre-college students to construct and explore complex phenomena. I plan to focus particularly on ideas related to evolution. Previous studies have shown that many students misunderstand and resist the idea of evolution through natural selection. I plan to develop a set of "evolution tools" (based on computational techniques like genetic algorithms) with the dual goals of: (a) gaining a deeper understanding of students' misconceptions about evolutionary ideas, and (b) helping students develop new ways to think about evolution. ***
