SolSys: The Solar System Simulation
The Solar System Simulation, originated at CONTACT VI in 1987, was developed
into an intercollegiate curriculum at Northern Arizona University by Reed Riner, as an honors course in
Anthropology and Engineering. Since 1990, it has included student teams
from many colleges and universities around the globe.
The teams represent colonies in a simulated future human community in space.
For example, Mars Colony is normally manned by NAU and the Cabrillo College
team traditionally inhabits the L-5 Colony near Earth. (See L-5 artwork above
by Joel Hagen.) Teams
communicate via websites, Internet e-mail and a Multiple User Domain (MUD),
a text-based, virtual reality program. Students are directed and encouraged
by their local faculty advisors and by a board of professional consultants in
the social and space sciences.
The students build a learning environment in virtual space and explore
communication problems in their community of remote "colonies."
The computer-supported, interactive virtual reality environment in which
the the simulation is conducted can be dramatically demonstrated. An audience
visits sites in the future Solar System, where they can tour a city in space,
walk on the moon and talk to Martians.
This simulation received national recognition in 1994. A group of federal
agencies representing education for the future, including the Coalition
for Networked Information and the American Association of Higher Education,
selected SolSysSim, out of a wide field of proposals, as one of two projects
in the country to be presented at the EDUCOM convention. The judging committee
stated that the project "represents best practices in the use of networking
and networked information in teaching and learning."
Faculty Advisors & Board of Virtual Consultants
John Breganzer, Anthropology, Univesity of Dayton
Jen Clodius, SolSySim Administration
Jim Dator, Political Science, University of Hawaii
Jim Funaro, Anthropology, Cabrillo College
Steve Gillett, Geologist, University of Nevada, Reno
Jerome Glenn, American Counsel, United Nations Univ
Steve Howe, Los Alamos National Laboratories
Chris Jones, Education, Eastern Oregon State
Jeffrey Kargel, USGS, Planetary Geology Division
Chris McKay, Planetary Science, NASA/Ames
Douglas Raybeck, Anthropology, Hamilton College
Reed Riner, Anthropology, Northern Arizona University
John Spencer, Lowell Observatory
Robert Tyzzer, Anthropology, San Diego State
© 1997,1998,1999,2000 CONTACT: Cultures of the Imagination,
Inc. All Rights Reserved.