Simulating the formation of biofilms in an undergraduate modeling course

Meaningful applications that illustrate fundamental concepts and techniques are crucial in computational science education. In this paper, we discuss development of a simulation on the structural growth of a biofilm that is appropriate for modeling, simulation, or high performance computing courses. Consideration of cellular automaton simulations, boundary conditions, and diffusion in this context can empower students to develop similar simulations for other applications. Moreover, extensions of the basic model can illustrate and motivate the need for high performance computing in computational science. The module, “Biofilms: United They Stand, Divided They Colonize,” used for instruction and developed by the authors as an Undergraduate Petascale Education Program (UPEP) Curriculum Module is available at http://computationalscience.org/upep/curriculum.