Which part of the living system did you change?
Labs / Biology
Population Growth
A handful of organisms lands in an empty habitat and starts multiplying. Reproduction adds individuals, but as the crowd nears the carrying capacity K the growth slows, tracing the famous S-shaped logistic curve. Drag on the graph to cull or boost the population, then watch how it recovers.
Labs / Biology / Population Growth
Population Growth
A handful of organisms lands in an empty habitat and starts multiplying. Reproduction adds individuals, but as the crowd nears the carrying capacity K the growth slows, tracing the famous S-shaped logistic curve. Drag on the graph to cull or boost the population, then watch how it recovers.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Living systems are connected and constantly changing. This model makes one biological process visible so you can test how its parts affect one another.
Explore
Try the model
N 4gen 0K 200r 1.00
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- With a low growth rate, how gently does the curve ease up to K — does it ever cross the dashed line?
- Push r past 2. Why does the population shoot above the carrying capacity before crashing back down?
- At the “Chaos” preset, can you predict what next generation's count will be, or has it become unpredictable?
- Drag the population far below K and release. Does a small colony bounce back faster or slower than one dragged just under capacity?
- Lower K while the habitat is full — what happens to the organisms that no longer have room to survive?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Explain the process as a chain: a change happens, the system responds, and that response affects what happens next. Use an observation from the model as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
How did the system respond?
How would you explain that response?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.