Modeling Your World got off to a great start. Bob Gotwals discussed mathematical modeling, or changing science and what you see into math. He showed them how to make tying your shoes into an equation. Then he went on to why we use models. We use them for things that we might otherwise not be able to see, like things that take a very long time (like the formation of galaxies) or a very short time, for things that are too large or too small to be seen, or for things that are too dangerous to test. He went on to show how a rope could model a condor, and then the kids examined what was happening as the rope "flapped". By marking one end of the rope it became clear that the rope was not waving up and down, but actually making large circles. At this point Bob2 turned the stage over to Alton Patrick.

Alton began by defining what a galaxy is. This lead to using GalaxSee, a piece of software designed by Shodor, to look at galaxies with and without rotation, and then with varying amounts. He then asked the kids to point their web browsers to an article online. He asked them what the problem with the article was. The kids came right back to him with, "Hey! You can't see a black hole! How do they know it's there?" We then went back to GalaxSee to look at the effects of a really big object on a galaxy. They then went and looked at colliding discs and the clusters that they formed. The final GalaxSee example was a small object being "captured" by a larger one. The kids altered the settings until it formed a stable orbit.