This document provides information about a simulation project done using STELLA software. It includes the names and student IDs of three students, the title and lecturer's name. It then outlines the contents of the project report, which includes an introduction to computer simulation, advantages and disadvantages of simulation, an overview of the STELLA software, a discussion of three graphs generated from the STELLA simulation of a prey-predator relationship between mice and owls, and advantages of using STELLA simulations in education. The document concludes by listing references used in the project report.

1. Name & matric
number
Khairul Amri Bin Zulkeple D20151070974
Mohd Sabri Bin Hassan D20152072049
Abdul Munzir Bin Ismail D20152072033
Title Simulation (Stella Software)
Group B
Lecturer’s name Encik Azmi bin Ibrahim
FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
UNIVERSITI PENDIDIKAN SULTAN IDRIS
SSI 3013
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCE

2. No Title Pages
1. Introduction 3
2. Advantages of simulation 4
3. Disadvatages of simulation 5
4. What is STELLA? 5-6
5. Discussion 6-8
6. Advantages using STELLA simulations in education 9-11
7. Conclusion 11
8. References 11

3. INTRODUCTION
Computer simulation represents the dynamic responses of one system by the
behaviour of another system modelled after it. Simulation by computer is the way of creating
a model of an actual or theoretical physical system by carrying out the model on a digital
computer to analyse. A simulation uses a mathematical description, or model, of a real
system in the form of a computer program. When the program is run, the resulting
mathematical dynamics form an analog and the results presented in the form of data. A
simulation can also take the form of a computer-graphics image that represents dynamic
processes in an animated sequence. The output in computer simulation, we can divide it into
three sub-fields which are model design, model execution and model analysis.
Computer simulations are used to study the dynamic behaviour of objects or systems
in response to conditions that cannot be easily or safely applied in real life. For example, a
nuclear blast can be described by a mathematical model that incorporates such variables as
heat, velocity, and radioactive emissions. Simulations are especially useful in enabling
observers to measure and predict how the functioning of an entire system may be affected by
altering individual components within that system. This simulation can be equivalent with the
‘role play’ which is we simulate people, animals or objects with toys and figurines to
understand the progress or process. Hence, computer simulation acts as the electronic
equivalence to role play to drive synthetic environments and virtual world. There are many
forms of models such as declarative, functional, constraint, spatial or multi-model. If the
software components are driven by mathematical relationships, the model can be simulated in
various scenarios to verify that the system is correctly represented and input signals are
properly responded.

4. ADVANTAGES OF SIMULATION
1. Safety. By using simulation, we can avoid any danger. Avoid injuries and can reduce
any accident during the process. For example, the scientist wants to test unstable
chemical like uranium. With the simulator they will gain information how much
stabilizer need to stabilize the uranium before an actual practise.
2. Help to find un-expected phenomenon. Simulations provide highly flexible techniques
for answering a wide range of research questions. These questions include what
happened in the first moments of the Universe, how wind turbulence around aircraft
works, how the World Wide Web evolves, or how to better design supersonic jet.
3. Easy to perform. The results are mostly accurate compared to analytical model. Users
also can have trial and can identify the errors as many times as desired.
4. Can be used to compress a time frame. A simulation model run on a computer system
can be used to investigate quickly the effects of a change in a real life situation that
take place over several years. Other than that, the simulation can be slow down to
study the behaviour more closely.
5. Practical feedback. Simulators are able to give practical feedback about the real world
system to users. It can help the designer to save construction cost by allowing them to
explore better design alternatives thus make the best decision before physically build
the systems.
6. Can be used to study complex systems that would otherwise be difficult to investigate.
It is an effective way to teach certain concepts to student by demonstrating instead of
text books. Computer can represent information by graphics, videos, sounds and
animations which are can attract student attention and enhance student to
understanding the process effectively.

5. DISADVANTAGES OF SIMULATION
1. In certain cases simulation models can be very expensive. A simulation model is a bit
costly to build and expensive to conduct the process. Simulators can be very
expensive and require constant updates and maintenance.
2. To run simulation, a person must be expert in the computing skills and programming
as they need to understand well how the software is functioning. Staffs needs to be
trained on how to use the software and/or hardware and this takes up time and costs
money.
3. Although simulation can be applied in a variety of contexts, a formalized set of rules
and best practices is not always readily available. For this reason, simulation
modelling is incredibly creative, but may be daunting for new researchers who have
no single reference to consult when starting out.
4. Well manage system. It is requires uses of computer system with a fast processor and
large memory. Complex simulations can require the use of a computer system with a
fast processor and large amounts of memory
5. Sometimes it is difficult to interpret the simulation results because of poor
understanding and insufficient data. For this reason it has not been possible to create
simulations that can accurately predict the occurrence and effects of earthquakes and
tsunami. The formula and functions that are used may not provide an accurate
description of the system resulting in inaccurate output from the simulation.

6. What is STELLA?
STELLA is computer simulation software that provides a practical way to visualize
and communicate how complex the system really works in the real world. STELLA is a
modelling software package that diagrams, charts, and uses animation help visual learners
discover relationships between variables and helps simplify model building. Stella handles
time series, sensitivity, and simulation models well and has a 'drag and drop' modelling
interface. Given the combination of ease of use and modeling power, the STELLA system is
ideal to interface with student investigative experiences. In its most basic form, modeling in
STELLA proceeds in three steps: constructing a qualitative model, parameterizing it, and
exploring the model's dynamics
A lot of people can use this simulation as it can give teachers, students, and
researchers to utilize the software and explore more to an endless questions and experiments.
The model itself provides a lot of opportunities for the students to explore by questioning
what is happening in reality. It also can make the learning process more exciting and
effective. STELLA is being used widely by many researchers and educators to study various
fields such as physics, calculus, economics, literature, chemistry, medicine and so on. It
recognized for its ability to stimulate learning in users.
In this assignment, we used STELLA software on prey-predator relationship between
owls and mice in palm oil tree farm and through this experiment we can predict the effect of
mice and owls population to the palm oil tree. Thus, instead of carrying out the experiments
in a real laboratory, STELLA enables us to save time and cost and also helps to predict
outcomes almost immediately.

7. DISCUSSION
Graph 1
 Total mice: 20000
 Total owl: 12
 In order to run the simulation, we have set the palm tree to the zero number. Since
mice had occur so we predict the population of mice up to 20000. Then the present of
owl is 12.
 Based on the graph we can see the total of the mice in normal situation but for the
palm tree and owl is in panic situation.
 The graph shows us for the palm tree is a ascending and that was normal.
 Thus, the production of palm fruit increased steadily through the year

8.  Graph 2
 Total mice: 30000
 Total owl: 19
 From the graph we can observe the palm tree in the descending order, while for mice
in rapidly increase and owl are near to the zero point.
 From the graph, the total of mice and owl was normal but the increasing of the owl
effect a little bit of the result on the graph.
 After a long time, the number of mice start to increase steadily because the number of
owl remain constant
 Situation that we can observe the indicator show all in panic mood
 Thus, the production of palm fruit decreased through the final year

9. Graph 3
• Total mice: 20000
• Total owl: 18
• From the graph, the total of mice and owl was normal but the increasing of the owl
effect a little bit of the result on the graph.
• After a long time, the number of mice start to increase steadily because the number of
owl remain constant
• But the number of palm fruit production still increasing
• After a few years later, there is a declination in number of palm fruit production due
increasing of the number of mice
• The number of mice is increasing throughout the experiment

10. ADVANTAGES USING STELLA SIMULATIONS IN EDUCATION
Meaningful learning is when students can relate what they study with the real world
situation. It is a good alternative to consider transforming every classroom setting into a
situated learning environment. It is possible to bring some of the benefits of situated learning
into the conventional classroom setting by using Stella. Stella facilitates situated learning by
providing interactive practice of real-world skills, focusing on the essential elements of a real
problem or system.
Science concepts that cannot be seen through their eyes are hard to understand.
Therefore, they need something to help them see and understand the process or phenomena of
the science concept. This is why Stella can be integrated in teaching and learning science to
help students visualize and get real picture of what they learn. Simulations are needed to
visualize process that is too small to review such as reproduction of bacteria. The main
purpose of simulation is to allow the motivated students to have a deeper understanding of
the experiment or model they simulate. With the animated outcomes such as graph plotting,
charts, relations, and diagrams, students will have a better picture of the process. Other than
that, of course animated and interesting interface of the simulations from the Stella can attract
the students’ interest to learn.
Stella software allows students to interact with the simulations and mostly,
simulations are designed with flexible architecture that allows their variables to be altered.
Simulation can enhance student’s motivation and interest to learn since they are very familiar
with the computers and digital games. They love environment of learning that requires them
to explore which suit their curiosity and high-tech mind. So, students can change the
parameter in the variables and observe how the simulated outcomes changes. By directly
modifying a model, students can experience with the behaviour of the models in a number of

11. different scenarios. By doing a simulation using Stella too, students can relate it with the
content knowledge and with the real life.
One of the purposes of educational simulation (Stella) is to motivate the learners or
students to engage problem solving, hypothesis testing, experimental learning, scheme
construction and development of mental models. Using this technique in teaching in learning
is really an effective method to motivate students to increase their interest towards learning.
Simulation can motivate student in many ways includes ability of this Stella software to
create a risk free environment and allow students to explore the simulation. Student can
develop skills through real life situation and experience. One of the other ways to develop
these skills is through learning with the assistance of simulation. Analysing and predicting
data by using Stella can enhance student’s thinking skill and problem solving skill. This
process also can give student the introduction on how to do on a research, which they will do
in their higher level of education later. Problem solving skill is one of the important skills that
everyone needs.
Simulation can be useful in predicting the future outcome with all the necessary study
data. In real life, no one can predict future accurately but we can study the pattern for the
highest probability that will occur. The simulation presents the environment, authentic
information sources and the tools to let the student solve the problem and test their
knowledge. As mentioned before, Stella provides risk free environment, student or teacher
does not have to worry about any risky outcome may be happened. By using Stella, students
are able to study the trend of the outcome whenever they manipulate the variable because
student can see the trend of the experiment when they run the experiment. Take the graph
from the pendulum experiment, it can be seen that the graph have certain pattern and the next
graph can be predicted

12. CONCLUSION
Simulation contributes in teaching as it enhances understanding and promotes higher
order thinking skills. Simulation is suitable to be used in the school because it can motivate
students in learning process. This simulation provides a platform for students in research and
for further understanding by analyzing and synthesizing graphs, which is against the norms in
traditional teaching. This simulation can increase student knowledge and assists them to doing
the research by their own more easily and practically. Simulation can motivate students by
keeping them actively engaged in the learning process through requiring that problem solving
and decisions making skills be used to make the simulation run. As the simulation runs, it is
modeling a dynamic system in which the learning is involved. Thus, participation in
simulations enables students to engage in systems thinking and enhances their understanding
of systems as well as science concepts. Actually, simulation can be considered as a powerful
tool in active learning experiences. It can provide a kind of lab-like experience. So the
students will become more exciting and inspiring in study because most of the students will
become more exciting and inspiring in study as most of them more prefer to do something
new rather than just sit and hear. By using this simulation, the students can predict and guess
the factors, variables and the significance that can cause the pattern of the graph change. If the
magnitude is change, the graph will also change. There is no such thing that the value is
change, but the graph still the same. This simulation also can help the students to understand
the probability and sampling theory. The teachers not have to worry the validity of this
simulation theory because instructional simulations have proven their worth many times in the
statistics based fields. So, it can be said that simulation is one of the best method for the
teachers to give their student more understanding in the abstract topics.

13. REFERENCES
Berryman, A. A. (1992, October 5th ). The Orgins and Evolution of Predator-Prey Theory. Retrieved
from Ecology: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1940005?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Korb,
K. B. (2012, november 11). The Philosophy of Computer Simulation. Retrieved from Clayton
School of Info Tech Monash: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/-korb/lmps.pdf
Craig, D. (1996, July 8). Disadvantages of Simulation. Retrieved from Disadvantages of Simulation
STELLA (Systems Thinking for Education and Research). (n.d.). Retrieved from Data Observation
Netwok for Earth: https://www.dataone.org/software-tools/stella-systems-thinking-
education-and-research