Three modules were created. A module on phosphorus in Lake Wingra, built by a team led from N.C. State, explores the contribution of various sources of phosphorus to Lake Wingra in Wisconsin over the course of a year. A module in Acidification and the Southern Appalachian Mountains, built by a team led from Duke, explores the contribution of different regions of the country to atmospheric pollution at the border of North Carolina and Tennessee. The final module on Medieval and Modern Global Warming, built here at ESE, explores ways in which land use, population, energy systems, solar radiation and the carbon cycle influence mean global temperature. The Global Warming module is designed to be used by student teams exploring the causes of, and solutions to, potential increases in mean global temperature.
Students can control birth rates, mortality rates and neonatal survival.
Students can control the area devoted to each of six land types, and the net primary productivity of each land type. The carbon cycle through the atmosphere, mixing ocean, soil and flora. Students can control the transfer kinetics between any two compartments. Solar radiation energy balance. It also has been tested at more than a dozen colleges and universities in North Carolina, England and Austria.