conceptual model represents 'concepts' (entities) and relationships
between them.
Physical model (most commonly referred to simply as a model but
in this context distinguished from a conceptual model) is a smaller or
larger physical copy of an object.
A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process
about how something works in the real world. Most useful in helping
us to perceive and predict events in the environment.
Using a car versus fixing one.
Only need to understand that the gas petal on a car is pressed down to make the car go
faster – if all you want to do is drive the car.
If the goal is to fix a sticky accelerator then you need to look under the hood and (maybe)
in a technical manual.
“You don’t have to know how to rebuild a motor to drive a car”
Biologic model, either a model of an organism, or a mathematical model of a
biological system.