Teaching and Learning via the Network
Simulating Future Histories:
The Nau Solar System Simulation & Mars Settlement
Project Number 16 - 1994
Paper scheduled for publication
with special commentary
in
Anthropology and Education Quarterly
Aug (or Dec) 1994
by
Reed D. Riner (1)
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ
rdr@pine.cse.nau.edu
and
Jennifer A. Clodius (2)
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI
Simulating Future Histories
The Nau Solar System & Mars Settlement
Abstract
The authors and their colleagues are engaged in the fifth iteration of a
classroom-based socio-cultural simulation activity called "The NAU Solar
System". Instructors and teams of students in classrooms on twelve
campuses are role-playing the development and interaction of human
communities in a future Solar System; the NAU team will, once again,
establish the first permanent human settlement on Mars. Interaction
among the teams is facilitated by e-mail and an on-line Multiple User
Domain (MUD) program, a text-based virtual reality, in which all students
participate. Each team is evaluated in reference to local faculty
member's pedagogical objectives.
[ Simulations, Futures Education, Virtual Classroom,
Co-Operative Education, Science Education ]
The authors and their colleagues on eleven other campuses are engaged in
leading teams of students through the fifth iteration of the NAU
(Northern Arizona University) Solar System Simulation (3). This is a
classroom based role-playing simulation in which the student teams build
working models of communities and work-sites, some situated off-Earth, in
an historically plausible future Solar System. (We will have more to say
about what constitutes 'historic plausibility' later in this article.)
The 'model-building' is done face-to-face in each classroom, and also
collaboratively among the student teams through the Internet. Students
and faculty communicate with each other through the Internet through a
variety of communications, including a Multiple-User Domain (MUD)
program, E-mail, and other Internet modes.
This article describes, primarily from the location of the Mars
Settlement class at NAU, how the simulation is conducted, and what
pedagogical and anthropological premises are involved. It is our
contention that the pedagogical 'innovations', or alternatives, which we
have incorporated into the Solar System Simulation, are both different
from and complimentary to conventional instruction. The simulation
requires that students engage both halves of their brains, using
technology creatively and binding creativity to technological
feasibility.
At NAU we have been able to package a very unconventional course within
conventional administrative constraints. ANT 390 Cultural Simulation:
Mars Settlement is offered as 3cr.hr. lecture with a 1cr.hr. lab
incorporated into the course which meets 14:20- 17:00 T/Th in a spring
semester that runs from mid-January through early May. Usually EGR 390
Technological Simulation: Mars Settlement is offered and scheduled
concurrently; thus two rooms are available, so one can be used as a
break-out room. Both courses are designated 'writing intensive' and are
available for General Studies requirement and Honors, as well as
major/minor elective, credit. Students from all undergraduate levels and
from all majors may -and do- enroll. (Neville and Riner 1993)
Northwest Passage is offered as a one-credit fieldwork adjunct to courses
in anthropology at the University of Dayton. The L-5 settlement is a
one-credit addition to the Anthropology for the Future course offered at
Cabrillo College. On each campus the course, emulating a different site
in the future Solar System, has different pedagogical objectives,
depending on the faculty member and sponsoring department, and the
different administrative constraints that need to be accommodated. On
each campus conventional packaging seems to have been easily reconciled
to our unconventional course contents and collaboration.
Jim Funaro, leader of the L-5 team and founder of the annual CONTACT
Conferences where the idea for the Solar System Simulation was conceived,
argues that, "If you want to understand how something works, build a
working model of it." If you want to understand the workings of a
socio-cultural system, build a working model ... in which each individual
site, and the supra-planetary socio-cultural system of the future Solar
System as a whole is a plausible working model in which the builders are
immersed. If you're going to teach participant-observation and applied
anthropology, have students DO participant-observation and apply
anthropology (Ericson and Rice 1990). This, then, is one of the unique
aspects of the Solar System Simulation - rather than merely explaining
how systems work by taking them apart analytically, we ask students to
actually build, and to some extent, live in, their models.
At the first meeting of the NAU Mars Settlement course we assemble all of
the students in both sections in a large room furnished with tables and
chairs, moveable adult-style furniture, and plenty of chalk-board and
wall space. With some ceremony, deliberately aping a rite of separation,
we close the door. We announce to the students, "You are the population
that has been selected to establish the first permanent settlement on
Mars. You are already en route in the mission ship. You will arrive in
parking orbit ready to land at the end of the fourth week of class. By
then you will have to have designed a community that is viable in the
severe Martian environment. More than merely viable, this must be a
community that will be worth living in for you, and for your children.
You are going to have to work out scientifically and historically
plausible answers to the questions: when are you? why are you here? who
are you, and where have you come from? where are you going to settle on
Mars? and what are you going to do once you do settle?" One student
commented, "This is not a bogus problem, like the problems are in so many
other classes, problems that are obviously 'set-ups' and trivial."
The 'building' is not primarily the building of animated table-top
models, but composing a plausible scenario and a set of 'rules' to direct
the 'playing out' of a viable and desirable community. Students
collaboratively build social structure(s), and play out the consequences
in a process of discovery. Immediately the students have to organize
themselves to analyze their common problem: how to survive in a non-Earth
environment. They need to determine how to break the problem into
manageable parts and assign individual responsibilities with commensurate
authority for solving those parts, while maintaining dialogue with other
members of their community. The students must devise a viable system of
self-governance. (Graves and Graves 1987, 1985, Johnson, Johnson and
Holubec 1986, Collier 1980, Johnson and Johnson 1975) Another student has
remarked on "never having opportunity to make (to design) an organization
that works; all the student government organizations (on campus) are
already organized for us." In the longer range, this 'classroom
organization' is carried over into the Mars Settlement and played out in
the model that students describe in the text-based virtual reality, the
Multiple-User Domain (MUD) of SolSySim in the Internet.
Before making the jump to that frame of reference - into the MUD - we
want to make explicit some of the anthropology applied in our pedagogy.
Riner recalls the indelible impression left in his thinking upon reading:
"Is it not ironical that in a planned society of controlled workers given
compulsory assignments, where religious expression is suppressed, the
press controlled, and all media communication censored, where a puppet
government is encouraged but denied any real authority, where great
attention is given to efficiency and character reports, and attendance at
cultural assemblies is compulsory, where it is avowed that all will be
administered to each according to his abilities, and where those who flee
are tracked down, returned, and punished for trying to escape -- in short
in the milieu of the typical large American secondary school -- we
attempt to teach 'the democratic system'?" (Van Norman 1968).
The comment was published when McLuhan's maxim 'the medium is the
message' was new and pervasive (McLuhan 1965). McLuhan's intent is that
actions speak louder than words, that deep-structure speaks louder than
surface structure. When the medium contradicts message, when initiative
and collaboration are exhorted in a classroom arranged and organized in
the traditional 19th century authoritarian, industrial, instructional
style, the result is not direct learning but acute conflict (Bateson,
Jackson, Haley and Weakland 1956, Bateson 1960a, 1960b, 1969). The
message of the context is inculcated much more indelibly than is the
content of instruction. In contrast, the message in our medium is that
success will result from a diversity of participants collaborating
collegially and creatively in the solution of common problems. We expect
that 'work' in the future will be less individual, competitive and
convergent on a common end product, rather that work will be more
cooperative, collaborative and divergent to a multiplicity of products
(Hine, 1977). If the school experience is intended to provide
socio-cultural competency, especially future socio-cultural competencies,
then the classroom experience must model the context in which those
competencies will be employed. Therefore we have 'deconstructed' the
traditional classroom and the instructional style curriculum in order to
construct a futures-oriented pedagogical experience.
Second, we have invited play rather than compelled work as the primary
motivating factor in this pedagogical situation (Riner 1978,
Csikszentmihalyi 1975, Bateson 1955, Huizinga 1950). The result has been
that students throw themselves into the simulation with such energy and
absorption that many have slighted, even dropped, other classes. This is
an embarrassing success.
Third, we stimulate students to think in multiple future tenses. In each
iteration the students have decided that the first permanent settlement
on Mars could feasibly be in the mid-2070's. From that date they look
back to the present and 'reconstruct' the events which led up to their
situation; this entails thinking holistically about all of Earth's
socio-cultural systems. And they look ahead at the future of their
Settlement; this entails sensitive consideration of the continuity of
past, through present, with future. Thinking systematically about
alternative, plausible futures has a strong impact on all of one's
thinking. The precise character of this impact has only begun to be
studied systematically (Rogers and Tough, 1992). Thinking in a future
context, as our students do, adds a second tense to futures thinking,
with additional 'consciousness raising', but as yet unclarified, impacts
on their cognitive structures.
Finally, we emphasize model-building and problem solving. Social
scientists have been led to the recognition that socio-cultural systems
are chaotic systems (Riner 1991, Gleick 1987). Chaotic systems cannot be
predicted, but they can be modeled, and the models can be manipulated so
the player can discover latent properties in the model. And models,
unlike societies, can be experimentally altered in search of preferred
results, problem solutions. This is important scientifically and
intellectually; it is equally important pragmatically, ethically, and
pedagogically. Ethics precludes experimentation with human communities;
human subjects legislation increasingly discourages teaching students
participant-observation by doing it. Simulation students are immersed in
a model of their own devising, and goaded by assignments, to reflect
critically on the implications which follow from that model. Or, as
another student observed, "This class isn't really about Mars; the last
thing that it's about is Mars! It's really about organization and
disorganization, and order, and apathy, and solving problems, and how
people do -and don't- work together, and take risks, and make ethical
decisions, and ...." until he ran out of breath.
And all of the foregoing is reflected and reconstructed in the MUD (4).
The Multiple-User Domain is a kind of computer program that enables
several people to log in to a common account and chat with each other
'on-line' by typing their utterances in turn. The unfolding conversation
scrolls up on the participant's screen looking like a play script. In the
version we use (written by a Mars alumnus), players may partition their
"cyberspace" environment into rooms, connect the rooms with doors, write
descriptions for the rooms and for themselves, and create objects which
they may then carry from room to room. Players and objects may be
assigned membership in groups, and doors may be locked open and closed to
members of specified groups. All of these 'sets' and 'props' and
selective locks are recorded in the data base and so become more or less
permanent parts of the text environment. The syntax of players, rooms,
exits, objects and groups permits construction of a very complicated
models of social systems.
The genre of MUD-type programs began as recreational environments. We've
taken a relatively low-tech, popular, "everyman's" sort of virtual
reality and turned it from recreational to pedagogical ends. We are using
it, successfully, to impact the cognitive development of classrooms full
of students. We believe that this methodology is successful in part
because the learning takes place in a variety of cognitive domains
simultaneously. Both technological and creative skills are required and
developed, as is evidenced by the inherent qualities of working with and
in the MUD database.
The 'text', that is the data base along with the program for it's
manipulation, has the cumulative property of culture as records "of and
for behavior, .. as the product of action and the precursor to future
action" (Kroeber & Kluckhone 1952). The text also has the 'revisable'
property, again like 'real' culture; players may erase things they have
constructed and put new features in their place. As their creative and
technological skills increase, students frequently change or enhance
their previous constructions. The original objects, however, have made
impacts on the surrounding space, and these impacts remain as
archaeological features in the simulation. Students, as a consequence of
their active (and reflective) participation, develop increasing awareness
of the culture they themselves are creating. The "system of stuff and
rules" accumulates and becomes the increasingly limiting and
potentiating, and apparently more real referent in their lives.
At some point in this experience it suddenly dawns on almost every
student that they have been, and are, a collaborator in making the system
in which they find themselves. They discover the consequences of their
previous decisions, and begin to give increasing forethought to
consequences of present and future decisions. Sometimes this occurs in
the 'student' mind-set; in other cases it occurs in the 'Martian'
mind-set. By the time it occurs a certain definite distance has usually
developed between 'student' and hir 'persona'. Communicating the insight
from one mind-set to another is a challenge that emerges for many of the
participants. We believe this achieves the 'reflexivity' asked for by
forward-looking anthropological educators (Segal 1990, deRoche and
deRoche 1990, Smith 1990, Peterson 1990).
The plausibility of the students' future history is not only desirable,
it is required. We allow the development of new technological futures
only to the extent that students can demonstrate their feasibility,
preferably by extrapolating from current research trends or ideas. While
this may seem restrictive, given the advances made over the last century,
it does preclude the students' developing "sudden" breakthroughs in, say,
faster-than-light transportation. All of the teams have available to them
(both in the MUD and through E-mail) a variety of expert professional
advisors who specialize in physics, legal systems, astronomy, and
planetary data.
Yet another kind of learning occurs as students develop the virtual model
of their communities. A number of concepts familiar to computer
programmers, concepts which are usually difficult for the novice computer
user to grasp, are made challenging and even fun in a MUD. These concepts
include linked lists, loops, if- then- else clauses, Boolean logic,
pattern matching, set theory, variables, labels, attributes tracing and
parsing. Though, to a new user, these concepts would seem baffling in a
computer class, on a MUD they have immediately visible and applicable
uses. Once someone has explained to a user that moving a room is as easy
as opening new doors to it from someplace else and removing the old
doors, (which a programmer would see as moving a node in a linked list)
they understand and are able to do it quite easily. Once a MUDder starts
learning the tricks possible in a MUD, it's only a short transition to
using them in a bonafide programming environment.
Additionally students learn improved communication skills. One of the
benefits of using a MUD environment is that it equalizes (dare we say
"democratizes"?) the interaction dynamic within the student group.
Students who rarely express their ideas, concerns, and questions in a
seminar setting feel free to do so at a keyboard. This increased
participation using electronic media has been noted by others. According
to Sproull and Kiesler, perceived status in face-to-face interactions has
a high correlation to how much a person speaks. In their experiments,
however, discussions held electronically showed twice as much equality of
participation as discussions held face-to-face (1991: 60). We find that,
because we have greater participation from all of our students, a broader
range of ideas are presented and considered when they develop their
cultural systems.
Differentiation in traditional gender roles is also reduced
electronically, according to Sproull and Kiesler's observations. In the
NAU Solar System Simulation we've noted similar variation from
"traditional" roles. Female students aren't supposed to prefer "hard"
sciences; we've had women take on the design and theoretical construction
of power plants. Male students aren't supposed to be good with words;
we've had men take on the role of team historian.
Working in the MUD environment can act as a Goffman-esque "backstage" for
some students. They become used to interacting with other students, and,
time and again, we've seen these increased communication skills carried
from the MUD back into their everyday lived experiences. This is not to
say, of course, that working through a MUD will cure a lack of social
skills, but it has certainly helped numerous students with whom we've had
experience.
We come, then, to why we, as educators, have continued to use this method
of teaching anthropology. First, it works. Our students become enthused,
willingly learn information about subjects in which they previously had
no interest, and (albeit sometimes unintentionally) learn to look at
their current world in a considerably broader perspective. Second, by
removing the course curriculum from Van Norman's all-too-accurate
description of the American academic institution, we allow the students
to teach themselves. This is not to say, of course, than we stand idly by
and let chaos reign -there are, indeed, assignments and expectations and
grades. In fact, we frequently find ourselves running to keep ahead of
new ideas, new concepts, and new applications in order to be able to
guide and suggest alternatives to impractical ideas.
Finally, we are aware that we are treading on some not-yet-firm ground,
what Howard Rheingold calls "homesteading on the virtual frontier". We
are, in pushing anthropology into the future, studying the initial
impacts made by virtual communities - communities of interest, not of
location. As Rheingold observes, these virtual communities have, and will
continue to have, ramifications on "our real-life relationships and
communities [and] lead to fundamental questions about social values in an
age when so many of our human relationships are mediated by
communications technology" (1993: 146). This, then, is anthropology for
the future - and it's fun!.
Footnotes
- Reed D. Riner (rdr@pine.cse.nau.edu) is Professor of Anthropology at
Northern Arizona University, (Flagstaff, AZ 86011), where he regularly
teaches seminars on the anthropological study of alternative futures. His
most recent publications include "Anthropology About the Future" Human
Organization, 50(3), Fall 1991, and, with Melvin K. Neville "The Futures
of Higher Education: Past, Present and Future" in "Creating the 21st
Century", Futurics 15(3&4):57-67, 1991. Earlier versions of this paper
were presented at CONTACT VIII, Mar 1991, Phoenix, Az, the 21st Century
Conference, Apr 1990, ASU-West, Phoenix AZ, the World Future Society
conference "Creating the 21st Century" July 1991, Minneapolis, MN, and
the National Collegiate Honors Council conference, Nov, 1991, Chicago,
IL.
- Jennifer A. Clodius (jclodius@students.wisc.edu) is a graduate
student in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin- Madison and
studying community-formation on the Internet. Her most recent
publications include several ethnographic technical reports for NORC at
The University of Chicago. She was originally introduced to SolSys and
DragonMUD when she was the teaching assistant for an anthropology class
involved in the SolSys simulation. Clodius has been co-administrator of
DragonMUD since May, 1991, dealing primarily with issues of human
relations, computer-mediated communications, and human-machine
interfaces. Additionally she has been an advisor on SolSys since 1992.
- The sites, faculty members, disciplinary affiliations and instutions,
reading from the bottom of Earth's gravity well up, are: Northwest
Passage (a submarine city under Earth's north polar cap), John Bregenzer,
anthropology, U Dayton; Luna Station, Chris Jones, political science,
Eastern Oregon State College; L- 5, Jim Funaro, anthropology, Cabrillo
College; L-4, Alluquere Rosanne Stone, radio, television, film, U
Texas-Austin; Mars Settlement, Reed Riner, anthropology, and Melvin
Neville, computer science, NAU, and James Dator, political science, U
Hawaii; Ceres, Don Robertson, honors, Liberty High School, Renton, WA;
Halcyon (Jovian Moon Mission), Doug Raybeck, anthropology, Hamilton
College. Additionally Alan Aycock and Henri Beaulieu, anthropology, U
Lethbridge, James M. 'Tim' Wallace and Leigh Mills, anthropology, NCSU;
Elizabeth Viau, education, CSLA; and Marilyn Garber, philosophy,
CS-Dominguez Hills are participant- observers, intending to lead teams in
the next, 1995, iteration.
- MUD (short for Multi-User Dungeon, originally) was the name of a game
written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle when they were students at
Essex University in the UK. The first, and still one of the most
commonly-used American versions, was TinyMUD, written by James Aspnes of
Carneggy Mellon University in 1989. Our program, DragonMUD (Ver 1.5.5.J7)
has been adapted and comprehensively re-written by John P. 'Jopsy' Crane.
Cited as one of the seven "first rank" TinyMUDS in Bartle's critique,
DragonMUD is the oldest continuously-running implementation of the
TinyMUD family, and the only one of those initial seven still in
existence. Originally put up in December 1989, it became accessible to
non-local players when NAU went on the InterNet in March of 1990. Crane's
version of the TinyMUD code is now being used by several other sites,
including Athens located at Merrimack University in Maine, Prohibition in
Santa Cruz, California, ToadMUD in San Diego, and MetropolisMUD in
Raleigh, North Carolina, with several other sites under development.
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