The Supporting Secondary Students in Building External Models project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is researching how the use of a systems dynamics tool to construct external models helps students to build robust conceptual frameworks. We are developing a new web-based systems modeling tool called SageModeler to facilitate model development. Students can use SageModeler as a simple diagramming tool, then—with pedagogical support from teachers and a curriculum that supports modeling—specify relationships between factors to create a computational model that allows students to generate model output.

We’re proud to announce a beautiful new SageModeler logo, created by Derek Yesman of Daydream Design*.

We believe that the logo represents many of the features of the systems modeling software. The two green swooshes create the letter S, which stands for SageModeler, of course. Significantly, they also evoke the links users create between nodes to define relationships. We see motion in those swooshes as well, which is another feature of the software, both because the software allows users to construct dynamic relationships and because the models are runnable with inputs and outputs.

SageModeler is embedded in CODAP, our Common Online Data Analysis Platform, so students can analyze the outputs of their models and compare those outputs with data from other sources—published data sets, such as ocean temperatures or CO₂ emissions, results of computational models like Next-Generation Molecular Workbench or NetLogo, or data from sensors—in a single analytic environment. The new SageModeler logo shares the same colors and some themes, too, with the CODAP logo. In the SageModeler logo, the squares represent nodes.

SageModeler is open source software, free to use, adapt, and extend. Contact us for more information!

* Derek also designed our CODAP and Molecular Workbench logos as well as our company logo.