Jeremy kicked off class with a review of student homework submissions to the class Sakai dropbox. Students were asked to show the affect of changes to model constants and Jeremy led a discussion of the affects submitted. For example, one student submitted the following two variable changes:



which were compared to the top baseline case.

Brian continued class off by introducing the concept of model variable change with time with an example of tying the prey growth rate (b) to a varying variable (bt) in our Volterra-Lotka predator-prey model. He looked at three cases (constant, sine wave, square wave) for the prey growth rate over time by running the model in a Python notebook. Graphs for the three scenarios appeared as:



Jeremy then provided an assignment handout and reviewed the requirements with the students. Students were encouraged to form teams in order to pursue the assignment in and outside of class.