Chais2025_Heb_and_Eng-web

54 E Simulations Storybook: Supporting Young Children’s Growing Understanding of Complex Systems (Short paper) properties in the second. In Session 1 ("Feeding Rabbits"), Dan spent 24% of his time exploring 13 scenarios, focusing on individual rabbits and their interactions, like observing holes in the food where rabbits had eaten. However, he did not address broader system properties like population or food availability. In Session 2 ("Sick Carrots"), Dan spent 25% of his time exploring 28 scenarios. He adjusted the infection slider and began noticing group-level properties, like carrot populations and how the carrots' proximity influenced infection spread. An independent t -test revealed significantly longer exploration durations for "Feeding Rabbits" scenarios ( M = 82.0 seconds/scenario, SD = 37.1) compared to "Sick Carrots" ( M = 18.3 seconds/scenario, SD = 16.2), t (14.19) = 5.93, p < .001, Cohen's d = 2.59. Discussion For RQ1, no changes were observed in children's reasoning about systems after reading the Simulations Storybook, except for a decrease in mid-level construction from pre- to posttest. Regarding RQ2, domain differences revealed decreases in mid-level (social system) and non- linearity (physical system). Physical tasks prompted more macro-level references and micro-level interactions, while social tasks elicited more level-transitions. The decrease in the making mid-level groupings, which decomposes systems by forming sub- groups, may have resulted from (1) as it's a simplification the children relied on it less over time when they needed it less with experience of the simulations; or (2) the storybook lacked object groupings to support its use. Non-linearity, the "butterfly-effect," is rarely used even by adults (Jacobson et al., 2011). Its limited use here aligns with prior research (Sacks, 2018), and the decline may be an experimental artifact, due to the small frequency value. The third RQ examined one child's interactions with the storybook. The child conducted numerous explorations, varying model features and shifting from focusing on individual rabbits and carrots to recognizing group-level properties, like populations and individual rules, like how carrot proximity influenced infection. This shift reflects significant development in systems- thinking. The child spent more time on the earlier model, likely because it was more dynamic, included more populations, and appeared earlier in the sequence. In conclusion, the Simulations Storybook enables children to explore and manipulate various system models, shifting their focus from individual entities to systemic properties—a hallmark of complexity-reasoning. However, this learning remains context-bound to the book and does not transfer to interview tasks. Future work will explore additional scaffolding to enhance learning. Despite this limitation, the children's extensive exploration of the book's simulations and their developing systems-thinking are promising. References Bus, A. G., & Anstadt, R. (2021). Toward digital picture books for a new generation of emergent readers. AERA Open , 7 , 23328584211063874. Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative (4 th edition) . Prentice Hall. Danish, J. A., Peppler, K., Phelps, D., & Washington, D. (2011). Life in the hive: Supporting inquiry into complexity within the zone of proximal development. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 20 (5), 454-467. DOI 10.1007/s10956-011-9313-4 Epstein, J. M. (2008). Why model? Journal of artificial societies and social simulation , 11 (4), 12.