NetLogo Users Step Off the Well-Worn Path
Before professor Lin Xiang discovered the modeling program NetLogo, using tech teaching tools felt to her like visiting a state or national park. “We were restricted to established trails and selected viewpoints, with no way to explore the rest of the terrain,” she said.
NetLogo let her step off the established path. The software gave Xiang a comprehensive view of the natural world, which shifted her thinking and broadened her perspective on what can be taught in science class.
“NetLogo users can wander anywhere they like and even alter the environment to observe the long-term impacts,” said Xiang, associate professor of science education at the University of Kentucky's College of Education. “They gain a deeper understanding of the system. For educators, this flexibility means there is no single 'right' way to use NetLogo, opening many possibilities for the science classroom.”
Xiang was one of dozens of presenters from around the country and world who shared her insights at Northwestern University’s NetLogo Center's first conference for both researchers and K-12 teachers.
Held at the University of Illinois Chicago, the event brought together the diverse communities of NetLogo users and agent-based modelers — from seasoned designers to first-time users with no background in computing — to share, learn and connect.
NetLogo, a free software tool used by hundreds of thousands, lets researchers, teachers, artists and students simulate the behavior of complex systems, ranging from forest fires and tick infestations to traffic jams, disease outbreaks and even political and religious polarization. Users program the individual "agents" within the system and watch what happens when they all interact.
NetLogo's creator, Northwestern University professor Uri Wilensky, who recently won the prestigious Yidan Prize for his work developing it, opened the event with a keynote conversation with Jacob Kelter (PhD25), executive director of the NetLogo Center housed in Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy.
"After many years of developing the NetLogo software and the associated communities, it is exciting for us and our users—both researchers and teachers—come together to share their work and learn from others," said Wilensky, the Lorraine Morton Professor of Learning Sciences at the School of Education and Social Policy and a professor of computer science.
The other keynote speakers included professor Josh Epstein, founding director of the New York University Agent-Based Modeling Laboratory, and professor Moira Zellner, director of participatory modeling and data science at Northeastern University.
The vast utility of NetLogo was on display in nearly every session, which featured experts from widely different fields. Rebecca Vandewalle, a computational geographer and social science researcher, has a background in classical archaeology and archaeological excavation. NetLogo gave her the tools to explore concepts she was already interested in with the precision of computational models.
“In geography, we want to know how processes create patterns in space and time,” said Vandewalle, assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Florida.
“We have powerful tools to explore spatial patterns, but software like NetLogo allows us to connect patterns with the processes that may have generated them, such as emergency evacuations, disease spread, land use and river channel formation,” Vandewalle said. "NetLogo use cases are widespread for processes dealing with physical or conceptual spaces."
NetLogo for Educators
On the research side, workshops explored the basics of good modeling: how to test code for errors, run sensitivity analyses and connect models to real-world geographic data. There was even a session on weaving large language models into agent behavior — letting the AI agents inside a simulation tap into ChatGPT-style reasoning on the fly.
But while it's a valuable tool for researchers, NetLogo is increasingly used by teachers — one of Wilensky's original goals when he developed it.
One popular workshop, led by Amanda Peel, showed educators how to teach computational thinking in science class without always using computers.
"Sometimes science education and computational modeling feel like separate worlds, and I really want to highlight their synergies," said Peel, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at New Mexico State University and a former postdoctoral fellow and assistant research professor at Northwestern.
“NetLogo opens doors to a new way of thinking,” she said. “Rather than running canned simulations, students can access the code and modify NetLogo models, and that supports a deeper understanding of modeling in education."
NetLogo can also be used to explore high school chemistry — such as chemical reactions, kinetics, and ideal gas laws — in a way that is accessible to students and educators without extensive programming backgrounds, Vandewalle said.
“The explanatory power of NetLogo is not only useful for education, but also in any context where there is a need to explain complex processes driven by individual behaviors," she added.
Xiang's work with NetLogo spans ecology, evolution, epidemiology, cell biology and chemistry, with a focus on representing complex scientific systems. At the conference, she presented on how to use an agent-based modeling approach for teaching wastewater surveillance in civil engineering education.
"In the classroom, these simulations allow students to engage in a wide range of scientific practices — from making observations, planning investigations and collecting data, to employing computational thinking and constructing explanations," she said.
Because NetLogo's design is rooted in how simple rules add up to bigger patterns, “it's a highly powerful tool for representing complex systems," she said. “This perspective allowed me to view various entities — from subatomic particles to galaxies — as interconnected parts of a massive, nested system."
For educators, its value for K-12 science teaching comes down to how closely it aligns with modern science standards and how accessible its models are for young learners.
“NetLogo is not a magic wand,” she added. “Teachers still need to provide thoughtful scaffolding to guide student exploration, particularly when working with younger elementary students.”
But walking away from the conference sessions “left me feeling incredibly inspired and eager to try out some of these fresh ideas in my own projects and classroom,” Xiang said.