Urban simulation models (experience throughout a strategic game)

The experience considers the achievement of a course for architecture and geography. The research penetrates into an experimentation based on the Systems Theory and the Systems Dynamics, which helps to understand the structure and the dynamics of the city, as a set of complex systems. SimCity, a game of strategy that allows to design, to plan, and to manage the dynamics of a city, is used as software. The experience had as principal target, tackling formulae of didactic experimentation, which integrate, by the application of networks and systems, the complex relations that configures the city. The methodology had theoretical and experimental stages, plus the achievement of a simulation exercise. The experience had very good reception, as method for learning and for research, despite the strange that it seemed in the beginning. Also, it generated a big aptitude to realize good research questions, since the behavior of many variables was learned to visualize simultaneously