| Project | Center for Earth and Space Science Education |
| Contact | Daniel Barstow |
| Dan_Barstow@terc.edu | |
| URL | Not Available |
| Project description | The Center for Earth and Space Science Education (CESSE) conducts research, development, implementation and professional development in several areas of Earth and Space Science Education. Major areas of emphasis include visualization tools (such as remote-sensing, Geographic Information Systems, shuttle astronaut photography, and 3-D animations), inquiry-based learning, linkages with NASA¹s Earth and space exploration program. Broadly speaking, our research and development work encompasses issues in curriculum design, visualization technology and cognition. We also are developing and implementing educational programs with feature student and scientist partnerships in authentic science research. The curriculum content focus of this work is on the Earth systems science and planetary exploration, with a strong infusion of systems, modeling and inquiry-based learning. CESSE is based at TERC, a non-profit educational research and development company in Cambridge, MA. For the CILT workshop, we will feature two of our projects: 1. EarthKAM -- Students have direct access to and control of a digital camera flown on the space shuttle. In real-time, students select targets of interest (on the Earth¹s surface), take the pictures and down-load them. They select and work with the images in support of investigations of their own design, focusing on Earth systems science. The project (formerly called KidSat) is implemented in collaboration with UCSD, JPL and NASA, and includes web-based tools for selecting, displaying and working with the images as well as curriculum support materials. 2. Mars Education Program -- NASA is currently embarked on a ten-year series of missions to Mars. These missions provide a wealth of new data and images, relating to the nature and history of Mars. CESSE works directly with JPL (which manages the Mars missions) to develop educational materials to engage students in the excitement and learning potential of these missions. The educational approach emphasizes the use of real data and images from Mars. |
| Theoretical background | Our work is based on three broad theoretical underpinnings: 1. Curriculum design -- Children learn best when they are engaged in inquiry-based learning, relating to areas of personal interest. In this regard, we consider visualizations more as ³mystery stories² than as ³lecture aides². In both of the example projects cited above, students design their own investigations and use the images as resources to support their explorations. 2. Cognition -- Through our Visualizing Earth project, we are conducting fundamental research in cognitive issues relating to the use of images, animations and other advanced visualization tools. We have found that children often have misperceptions in terms of such issues as size, scale, 3-dimensionality and change-over-time. Our research in these areas informs our curriculum design, and our selection of tools, in order to help students develop better abilities to understand and work with images. 3. Visualization Technology -- We have developed, adapted and experimented with a range of visualization tools. These include GIS tools (such as ArcView), 3-D animation and fly-over tools (such as ER Mapper), change-over-time tools (such as our own Time Navigator) and web-based image access tools. We do NOT emphasize image manipulation tools (such as NIH Image), as we find that they often distract from trying to understand the Earth science features and processes depicted in the images. |
| Challenges | Currently, we are focusing on two challenges: 1. Easy GIS -- GIS and other visualization software tends to be bipolar. At one extreme are professional GIS packages which are too technical for teachers and students to learn easily. At the other extreme are electronic atlases which are easy but cannot be used to import new data for one¹s own investigations. The challenge we are exploring is how to adapt one or the other extreme to meet in the middle, as an easy to use visualization tool that is flexible enough to easily import new data. We would like such a tool to display images, overlay data, provide 3-d manipulations and have controllable animations for change over time. 2. Student investigations -- We are exploring how to engage students in defining their own investigations that focus on Earth systems science and that take full advantage of images and visualization tools. Our research in this area relates to providing a compelling context, assuring that students have a rich resource of images, helping teachers feel comfortable with Earth systems science and spatial visualizations, and ratcheting up the level of challenge as students develop skills, knowledge, comfort and curiosity. |
| Partnership | We are highly collaborative in our work, both within TERC, and with other organizations. Current examples are: Dr. Lynn Liben of Penn State is a cognitive psychologist with whom we collaborate on Visualizing Earth. Dr. Sally Ride is a former astronaut with whom we collaborate on Visualizing Earth and EarthKAM Dr. Cheick Diarra is Director of Mars Education and Public Outreach at JPL, with whom we collaborate on Mars education Dr. Ralph Coppola is Director of Education for GLOBE, with whom we collaborate on the educational element of GLOBE Dr. Jack Farmer is a noted astrobiologist, with whom we collaborate for our high school course in astrobiology We look forward to expanding these collaborations, and establishing new ones. We are especially interested in working with colleagues in exploring the three focal domains of our work with visualizations in Earth and Space Science Education: curriculum design, cognitive research and visualization technology. |