MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn. Deb Roy studies how children learn language, and designs machines that learn to communicate in human-like ways. On sabbatical from MIT Media Lab, he's working with the AI company Bluefin Labs. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 20-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

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Click to watch Alain Plattner discuss his activity or watch the full webinar.We use MATLAB functions available from https://github.com/NSGeophysics/Seism-O to simulate the superimposition of different seismic waves recorded in a simple near-surface geophysics setting. The choice of the geophone layout influences how easy it is to discern the different wave types, which is crucial for the success of a near-surface seismics survey. Students learn which parameters they should try to estimate before the survey, why these parameters are crucial, and how they influence the setup of the survey.

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Numerical models are widely used to simulate systems ranging from climate to traffic jams, yet a high percentage of college-level students have little awareness of how they are constructed and their limitations. This activity is intended to introduce students to the construction and use of a simple conservation equation model using MATLAB. Students will construct, with the help of the instructor, a MATLAB script to simulate inputs and outputs to and from a water tank and the tracking of water volume through time. The activity includes calibration and verification of their model using data on flows observed in the water tank.

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The project objective is to have students make a realistic 3-D model that is to scale. Student Mission: Your objective is to create a 3-D model of a building of your choice or imagination. The building must be to scale relative to an average-sized person. You make recreate a dwelling, barn or famous building OR create your dream home. Your building must be to scale and should be finished (windows, roof, shutters, steps, furniture, etc.). The outside of your building should include some surrounding features (e.g. bushes, trees, sidewalks, street, shed, etc.). Your final project should incorporate the elements listed on the rubric and be as detailed as possible. Be creative!

This lab utilizes the computer program, Excel. In this exercise students will generate synthetic data sets based on a simplified model of daily high temperatures in Boone, NC and apply several filtering techniques to the data. A key to this lab is that the students must use Excel in an efficient manner; otherwise, this exercise may take a long time to complete. Thus, the synthetic data sets are intentionally large in size. The overarching purpose of this lab is two-fold: 1) Perform some quantitative data processing and determine the effectiveness of several types of simple mathematical noise filters, and 2) Make a professional interpretation and recommendation based on quantitative results.

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This activity introduces students to the finite difference solution of the hill-slope diffusion PDE. The students derive partial derivatives from Taylor Series expansions of the 2D topography function z(x,t). After deriving the finite difference solution to this PDE, students implement this solution in MATLAB to model hillslope evolution in time using constant material properties and time steps.

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Inspired by the work of the architect Antoni Gaudi, this research workshop will explore three-dimensional problems in the static equilibrium of structural systems. Through an interdisciplinary collaboration between computer science and architecture, we will develop design tools for determining the form of three-dimensional structural systems under a variety of loads. The goal of the workshop is to develop real-time design and analysis tools which will be useful to architects and engineers in the form-finding of efficient three-dimensional structural systems.

In this problem set students apply the finite difference method to develop a simple box model and then explore the impact of anthropogenic changes to the modeled system.

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Students use a hurricane tracking map to measure the distance from a specific latitude and longitude location of the eye of a hurricane to a city. Then they use the map's scale factor to convert the distance to miles. They also apply the distance formula by creating an x-y coordinate plane on the map. Students are challenged to analyze what data might be used by computer science engineers to write code that generates hurricane tracking models. Then students analyze a MATLAB® computer code that uses the distance formula repetitively to generate a table of data that tracks a hurricane at specific time intervals. Students come to realize that using a computer program to generate the calculations (instead of by hand) is very advantageous for a dynamic situation like tracking storm movements. Their inspection of some MATLAB code helps them understand how it communicates what to do using mathematical formulas, logical instructions and repeated tasks. They also conclude that the example program is too simplistic to really be a useful tool; useful computer model tools must necessarily be much more complex.

Students explore the greenhouse effect in this lesson using a computer simulation and develop a model for how it works.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of streamlining regulatory approval of medical products and technologies. Computational medicine, an emerging field integrating computational imaging and modelling, offers a pathway to refine, reduce, or replace otherwise costly and lengthy clinical trials – allowing them to be performed computationally, or in-silico. But reduced cost and time are only two benefits of in-silico trials. By performing trials on virtual populations, investigators can thoroughly explore extreme but plausible conditions that would not be feasible or ethical to consider in conventional clinical trials. They can also reduce the risk of human harm and the need for animal experiments. However, because in-silico trials are a new approach, the question of whether they can genuinely first replicate, and then expand upon, conventional trial results remains..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course will introduce students to architectural design and computation through the use of computer modeling, rendering and digital fabrication. The course focuses on teaching architectural design with CAD drawing, 3-D modeling, rendering and rapid prototyping. Students will be required to build computer models that will lead to a full package of architectural explorations with computers. Each semester we will explore the design process of a particular building type and building material.
The course also investigates a few design processes of selected architects. The course is critical of design principles and building production methods. Student assignments are graded based on the quality of design, representation and constructability. Great design input is always encouraged.

In this exercise, we analyze the trends in the CO2 record monitored at Mauna Loa, (the 'Keeling Curve'). This is an exercise in data handling, interpolation, trend estimation and extrapolation.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"RXRβ is one of three types of retinoid X receptors, which play important roles in how cells grow, differentiate, and die and might be targets for the treatment of conditions such as insulin resistance, autoimmunity, and neurodegeneration. A recent study into the physical behavior of RXRβ could bring researchers closer to that possibility. A combination of lab experiments and computer modeling revealed the unique properties of the receptor’s AB region. This region, common to this family of receptors, enables the activation of target genes. But in RXRβ, researchers found, the AB region also supports liquid-liquid phase separation a biochemical phenomenon that is fundamental to the compartmentalization of the cell. As a driver of RXRβ’s physical behavior, this capacity for phase separation could also influence the receptor’s transcriptional behavior. Understanding how could give researchers a better idea of RXRβ’s role in disease and how it might be modulated to promote human health..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Many books and thousands of papers cover the field of system dynamics. With all of these resources available, it can be difficult to know where to begin. The System Dynamics in Education Project at MIT put together these resources to help people sort through the vast library of books and papers on system dynamics. This course site includes a collection of papers and computer exercises entitled “Road Maps,” as well as a collection of assignments and solutions that were initially part of a guided study to system dynamics.  Note that while the level of the course indicated in the upper right corner of the screen is “Undergraduate / Graduate,” the material is suitable for people ranging from K-12 students to chief executives of corporations.

How are different types of earthquakes represented in InSAR data? How can we obtain detailed information on the earthquake source from InSAR data? How well can we resolve those details? In this unit, students investigate how simple elastic dislocation models can be matched to interferograms of earthquakes, and the various geometrical and surficial factors that can affect that process.

Notice Oct 5, 2020: the Visible Earthquakes tool was unavailable for the last couple weeks but is now online again at https://visible-earthquakes.appspot.com. Thank you for your patience.

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Online-ready: The exercise is electronic and could be done individually or in small online groups. Lecture can be done in an online format. A synchronous session is recommended.

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