Modeling and simulation as a service (MSaaS) for education: learning STEM concepts through simulation use and building

Despite their proven advantages in science and engineering and their broad application in daily activities such as travel planning and financial planning, simulations are not widely utilized in education, particularly at the K-12 levels. One of the main reasons is that simulation use and simulation building is reserved for expert's use and remains out of the reach to a larger audience. One potential solution is Modeling and Simulation as a Service (MSaaS) for education in the form of a cloud-based simulation learning environments (CSLEs). CSLEs can provide worldwide access to many people for using and building simulations as well as exposing them to STEM concepts like data capture and probability. This paper presents a roadmap for CSLEs. The roadmap, six requirements for building CSLEs, draws on insights from 1) testing a cloud-based simulation environment for education purposes with students ranging from middle school to graduate school and 2) capturing longitudinal data of simulation-building activities. Insights from the students' testing of the environment suggest that using drawings as conceptual models facilitates the transition from a real-life system to abstraction into implementation of the model. Longitudinal data capture provides the potential for identifying simulation-building habits across levels of expertise and the development of metrics and models for simulation development.