Leroy stands patiently. The man in front of him holds his head in his hands. "Let me get this straight, kid. You want to see Captain Chelsea. And the reason has to do with a talking whale?"

"His name is Herbie" adds Leroy.

The man pulls up his walkie-talkie and says "hey captain. I got this kid here who wants to see you. Something about a talking whale" says the man with a chuckle. "What’s that ... the kid’s name? The whale’s name? Uh, Herbie I think it was" he says looking at Leroy quizzically. "Whatever you say captain." says the man before turning back to Leroy. "You got the all-clear. She should be just through that door there"

Leroy follows where the man points and opens the door. "Uh, hello. Are you Captain Chelsea?"

The captain swivels in her chair and then stands up. "That's right. And who might you be?"

"Oh, I'm Leroy. Nice to meet you," he says with his hand out.

"Nice to meet you too Leroy," she says as they shake hands. "Now I heard this has something to do with a mutual friend of ours: a Herbie the humpback whale?"

"That's right! Here, he could probably explain it better. One sec ..." Leroy says pulling out his phone. "Hey Abby, you there?"

Abby's voice comes in through the phone. "Hearing you loud and clear. You want me to get Herbie on the call?"

"Yes, that's perfect!"

"Alright, patching him through now" Abby responds. After a few keyboard clicks, another voice comes through.

"Hey, all. It's Herbie. Can you hear me, ok?"

Leroy responds, "we hear you, Herbie. Chelsea's here too."

"Hey Herbie, been a while. How're the seas treatin' you friend?" asks Chelsea.

"Could be better, to be honest. See, we're getting ready for our migration down south. The trip can get dangerous, so I've been trying to get prepared. I looked into how my pod's gotten hurt in past years. Looks like a big cause of hurt is when big cargo ships like yours accidentally run into us."

"Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear that Herbie" said Chelsea with a sad look on her face. "I'd hate to think my shipments of cheese are hurting your whale friends."

"You ship cheese?" asks Leroy.

"That's right. Can't get enough of the stuff. My shipping company sends them back and forth up and down the west coast and even across the Pacific Ocean!"

"And you know I'm not trying to deny anyone their love of cheese Chelsea" Herbie chimes in.

"I appreciate that Herbie, but we should be able to get our shipments delivered and keep your friends safe too. There must be some solution ..."

"That's where our young friend here comes in. Take it away Leroy."

"Right, so I was on a whale-watching trip when I met Herbie. After I got over the fact that I was talking to a whale, he told me his story. So, I offered to do some research to help you two find a solution!"

Chelsea crossed her arms seeming impressed. "Wow, that's a big help Leroy. So, what did you find out?"

Leroy pulled out a notebook from his pack. "So, I started with some basic info on our humpback whale friends. Looks like they like to spend their summers up north. Some stay in Northern California and some go all the way up to Alaska. There's a lot of good grub up there for them to bulk up for the trip. Then they spend their winters down south in Mexico or even Central America. They prefer the warm waters there for their mating season. That means every spring and fall the whales are migrating up and down along the California coast. Humpback whales in particular like sticking close to the coast when they migrate."

"That’s right," says Herbie. "It's easier to navigate. Plus, there's less of a worry of running into predators."

"So that means our solution should focus close to the coast," says Leroy. "In particular, we should look at the coast near big shipping hubs. A lot of ships come in and out from right here in San Francisco for example."

"No doubt," agreed Chelsea. "And it makes sense to look where there are more ships and more whales. That would be where there's the most danger of collisions. So that's where we should be focusing. But what should we be doing?"

"So, there are three ideas I found in my research. The first one might be the most obvious: No-Go Zones. These are pretty simple. We just agree parts of the ocean are No-Go Zones. Then ships know that they can't travel through that part of the ocean. No ships, no chance of whales getting hit."

"Hmm, can't say I like the sounds of that," said Chelsea. "If we put No-Go Zones everywhere, my ships wouldn't be able to get out of the harbor and get where they need to go. But if there were just a few, my ships could try to reroute."

"But would just a few be enough to make sure us whales don't get hit?" asks Herbie. "We whales move up and down the entire coast after all."

"I agree with you guys," says Leroy. "So, I thought we might try Slow Zones instead. They're similar but instead of ships not being able to pass at all, they just need to pass through slower. Somewhere around 15 knots."

Chelsea listens pensively. "Oh, that's not as bad. It would still shift our shipping plans for sure. But it wouldn't be as much as a No-Go Zone would."

"Just spit-balling here" interjects Herbie. "You guys have all this amazing technology, right. I mean, I'm talking to you all from the ocean miles and miles away right now! Isn't there some technology you could make to just see where we are and avoid us?"

Leroy responds, "that's a thought I had too Herbie. Ships have radar that tells them what ships are near. Some have sonar that can find things on the ocean floor. But radar can't go through water, and sonar's range is too short. By the time sonar would have picked up on one of your whale friends, it would be too close. The best solution for knowing if there are whales around is still just looking out for them. That brings in my third possible solution: Whale Reporting. Each ship will have a few people looking out for whales. When they see any, they navigate around them. But they can record where they saw the whale online so other ships could check it. Then other ships could see where whale sightings were reported and avoid those areas altogether!"

"That sounds wonderful," exclaimed Herbie. "Ships can keep an eye out for us, and help other ships do that too."

"Going around the whales would be better for shipping than lowering our speed. But it would take a lot of resources to get that system going. You would need to hire people to keep an eye out for whales. You would need to program the thing that lets you record and track whale locations. Plus, you would need to train everyone to be able to use it correctly. Having all of that for every single ship would be a lot of work!"

"That's a good point," says Leroy. "So, taking all of that into account, here's what I think. Covering the coastline in Slow Zones is the best solution of the three. Humpback whales only swim off the coast a few miles. If we extend the Slow Zone out into deep waters where whales will generally avoid, we'll lower the chances of any collisions." A hush falls over the room as Leroy awaits their reaction.

"It doesn't sound like a bad idea Leroy" says Herbie. "But are you sure it'll be enough to keep us safe? I guess I just don't know enough about this solution to be confident it'll work ..."

"I have a similar worry on the other side of things," says Chelsea. "Slow Zones seem like a good option. But putting them all the way into deep waters feels like it'll really slow our shipments. I could be ok with that if that's what we need to save our whale friends. But do we really need all that? Or like Herbie said, do we know if it’ll even be enough?" Leroy takes a second to think.

Herbie mentions "I also really like the Whale Reporting idea. I know it might not be as easy as setting up a Slow Zone. Is there a way we could try it a little bit?" Herbie takes a pause. "I know we have a lot of questions. But we don't want to seem ungrateful for all the research you've done on this. I even think the idea sounds like a good one."

"This is super helpful feedback though" replied Leroy. "You guys have a point. I still think Slow Zones can be a good solution. But it would be great if we could be sure it would be the best solution." Leroy jots down a few things in his notebook. "Looks like I have some more work to do. But don't worry, I'll find a way to convince you guys."

Captain Chelsea shoots him a smile. "Good luck, Leroy. And thanks again for all the help."

(a day later)

"So that's the situation," says Leroy to Abby after recounting Herbie and Chelsea's feedback. "I still feel good about my solution. I just wish there was a way to try it out."

"Hmm ..." Abby says seemingly lost in thought. "Have you thought about using a model?"

"A model? You mean like a 3D model of a whale?" asks Leroy.

"No, silly. A scientific model. Like, a representation of the problem that can help you see it better. It’s a way to see how everything is connected" explains Abby excitedly.

"How am I going to do that for a whole ocean?"

"That's exactly the point. We don't need to model everything about the situation. Just what we think is important to the problem and finding a solution. Here, let's start simple. When does a collision happen?"

Leroy thinks to himself for a second, convinced this is a trick question. "Uh, when a ship and a whale are in the same place and the ship hits the whale?" Leroy says with a shrug.

"Exactly. So maybe if we had some data on where ships and whales are ..." offers Abby.

"Oh, yeah I've definitely come across that kind of data somewhere. It counts how many whales were spotted in a specific square of a grid. And there was another similar map with how many ships passed through a square."

"Great! So, let's try to use that information. If there's a square in the ocean that has a lot of whales and a lot of ships ..." says Abby looking to Leroy for an answer.

"Then I guess there would be more collisions? But like, not necessarily. They could all just miss each other, right?" asks Leroy.

"Right, so maybe we could say there's more of a chance for collisions to happen. More danger."

Leroy's face lights up. "So, we just have to use how many ships there are in a square and how many whales there are in a square. Then we can know how much danger there is in that square. That model would tell us where the problem areas are."

"That's right! So how could we use that model to think about the different solutions you found?" asks Abby.

"Ooh, ok let me think. No-Go Zones seem kind of obvious. If you put No-Go Zones everywhere, then there'll be no danger at all because there'll be no ships." Leroy furrowed his brow. "But you would never cover the entire ocean in No-Go Zones, right? That doesn't let any ships go anywhere. So maybe you could do it square by square. If you put a No-Go Zone on a square, then that square has no danger. Even if there used to be a bunch of ships there in our data, there can't be any there now. And then Slow Zones are kind of similar. If a square has a Slow Zone, it doesn’t remove the danger. It just cuts down the danger to be only a bit of what it was."

"Yeah, I think that works!" exclaims Abby. "So, a No-Go Zone on a square makes it so a collision can't happen there. Then a Slow Zone makes it a lot less likely for a collision to happen there. So, let's say in this model you covered just where the whales are with No-Go Zones. That would mean no danger, no collisions."

"But that's not a good solution," adds Leroy. "Whales get really close to the shore. A lot of No-Go Zones that close could block ships from even leaving the harbor."

“Aha!” says Abby. “There’s something new there for our model. Sure, it needs to tell us how much our solution helps the whales. But it should also tell us how it affects shipping.”

“Oh yeah! Then we can see how balanced the solution is. Hmm, though we might also want to add a third thing. Like, ‘resources’ maybe?”

“How’d you figure?” asked Abby.

“Well, it has to do with the third solution: Whale Reporting. The thing is, it helps the whales and doesn’t stop shipping. But Captain Chelsea said it would be a lot to get every shipping vessel on board. It would be a lot of time, effort, money, and training to get it up and running.” explained Leroy.

“I see. So, we add a third “resources” idea to the model. Whale Reporting would increase it a lot, but the zones wouldn’t. On that note, here’s an idea. What if you did Whale Reporting but smaller? Instead of getting every ship on board, you get maybe half the ships to join in.”

Leroy thought for a moment. “It wouldn’t be as good at saving the whales. But it would be better than having no ships doing Whale Reporting. And it probably wouldn’t take as many resources.” Leroy sits back in his chair. ”I wish we could try some of these ideas out to see if they work.”

A grin spreads across Abby’s face. “What if I told you we could do just that?”

Leroy looks back at her curiously. “But how?”

“By turning our model into a simulation! We already have most of what we need. You know where the whales tend to be. You know where the ships tend to be. We just talked over the basic rules of how the different solutions work. All we need to do is turn that into some math: whales times ships equal danger. Then we can calculate how many whales we saved based off the whale and ship data and the solution we tried. And, if you ask very nicely, I can work my magic so the computer does it all for us” Abby says with a smirk. “I’d just need to give it instructions on how to calculate all of it. And maybe program a nice way to place No-Go and Slow Zones on the map.”

Leroy looks at Abby in amazement. “You’re a wizard, Abby. I’ll pull together the whale and ship data and get it ready for your code. I might also do some research on how effective Slow Zones are so we can punch those numbers into the calculations.”

“Awesome. Sounds like a plan” Abby says, giving Leroy a high-five. She swivels in her chair, cracks her fingers, and gets to work.

(the next day)

Leroy and Abby stand next to a big paper pad up on a stand in Captain Chelsea’s office.

“A simulation?” asks Herbie, his voice crackling through the computer screen.

“That’s right!” Leroy responds. “We took our data and research to create a model of the current whale collisions situation. Mainly, we focused on how the number of ships and whales in each area related to collisions. We also added how our different solutions would affect that. Then we took all of that and made it into a simulation programmed by my tech-savvy best friend, Abby.”

“Yup!” Abby says. “The simulation was made so you could try different solutions and see how they affected whales saved, shipments made, and resources spent.”

“That is so cool you guys!” exclaimed Chelsea. “So, did you test your Slow Zone solution? How did it go?”

Leroy gestures to some screenshots he put on the poster board. “Well, about what we expected. The Slow Zones really did bring down the danger for whales a lot! But its impact on shipping was a little higher than we’d like. But, our simulation can handle all three kinds of solutions. So, we thought ‘why not try solutions that use a bit of all three?’”

Abby points to some solutions they tried in the simulation. “We played a lot with how much of each we used. We tried more No-Go Zones, fewer No-Go Zones, more Slow Zones, more Whale Reporting, etc. We also paid attention to where the whales and ships were when we placed our zones. After a lot of tinkering, we found out three things about making an effective solution.” Abby looks to Leroy expectantly.

Leroy flips the page and says “Let’s start with Slow Zones. They are super useful for protecting whales. Plus, they’re a much better choice over No-Go Zones for the areas closest to the harbor and shoreline. Still, our old solution went a bit too far out with its Slow Zones. It was covering areas where whales almost never go. That made shipping slower but didn’t save any more whales. So, the first thing we did is only put Slow Zones where we know there are whales.”

As Leroy flips the page once again, Abby steps forward. “Next, No-Go Zones. They can be tricky to use because they hurt shipping so much more than Slow Zones. But we found a good case for when to use them. As you can see in this part of the map, there are a ton of whale sightings. But we don’t see quite as many ships pass through here. There are still some, but it’s not a path that all shipments take. These are perfect places for No-Go Zones. It’ll make a dangerous place for whales completely safe! As a bonus, it won’t get in the way of too many ships.”

“And last but not least …" says Leroy and he flips the page one last time. “Whale Reporting. We talked about how getting every ship to join the program would take a lot of resources. But then we thought ‘what if we didn’t aim for having every single ship join in?’ So, we had our simulation try a few different levels of participation. We found a happy medium at around half of the ships having Whale Reporting. It was a nice way of increasing the amount of protection we give whales on top of zones. Plus it doesn’t make shipping any slower either.” Leroy looks expectantly at Chelsea and Herbie. “So, whatcha think?”

Chelsea begins to applaud as Herbie gives a whistle of approval. “This is so cool, you guys,” Herbie says. “I can’t believe you guys found a way to test out your solutions without just trying it out. You humans always have a bag full of tricks, don’t you?”

“I’m so impressed” Chelsea remarks. “You guys found an awesome way to prove your solution works. Not only that, but you used it to make your solution even better! This is super exciting. I gotta make some phone calls. Let’s make this thing happen and save some whales!”

Leroy and Abby jump up and down with excitement. They can’t wait to put their plan into motion.