*** 9661112 Carter This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project to be carried out by ADA Technologies, Inc. addresses the need for innovative methods for instruction of life science topics on biological evolution, interdependence of organisms, and behavior of organisms. The objective of the research program is to develop an innovative artificial life simulation for implementation on personal computers and the Internet. Artificial life is a field of study devoted to understanding life by attempting to abstract the fundamental dynamic principles underlying biological phenomena and recreating these dynamics in other physical media--such as computers--making them accessible to new kinds of experimental manipulation and testing. The simulation is innovative since it employs concepts from the relatively new field of artificial life as used for synthetic biology, and uses the concepts as a complement to traditional analytic biology. The objective of the Phase I program is to quantify technological limits for the simulation imposed by the limits of personal computers and the Internet and to perform preliminary classroom testing of the simulation using instructional support materials conforming to national science education standards for content and teaching. Lessons learned in Phase I will provide the foundation for full-scale development of the software in the next phase of the project and commercialization and dissemination in the third phase. The team assembled for the program consists of persons with skills and experience in innovative technology and sound education principles. The outcome of an artificial life simulation will contribute to fulfilling the great need for innovative instructional resources. The commercial applications of the artificial life lab include classroom instruction, home-schooling, Internet implementation, science and technology centers and sale as a general entertainment product. ***
