Douglas Gordin, SRI International
Quinn McLaughlin, Osiris Studios
Educators have long struggled with the question of how to make sensible to students areas that are geographically remote (Mitchell, 1934/1991). Visualizations offer great potential for addressing this issue by providing visual media for students' investigations (Gordin & Pea, 1995). However, much research is still needed to realize this potential. This proposal focuses on the following research question:
How can the strength of multimedia and cartographic visualizations be combined so as to help students understand a remote area?
We propose to begin a design experiment to investigate this question. The location to be made accessible to students is the Amazonian Rain Forest. This area was selected because it is an object of great interest and importance to both public and scientific communities. The Amazonian Rain Forest, which is the world's largest rain forest, has been recognized as a crucial ecology for the earth. Biologists emphasize its high levels of biodiversity which are organized into a complex set of mutually supportive levels. Global scientists emphasize its role in the carbon cycle and the production of oxygen. Students and the general public are drawn to the its natural beauty and the myriad colorful creatures that live there. These varied interests are heightened by the speed of change: Each second an area the size of a football field is deforested.
This project proposes to create a WWW-based visualization environment to aid students' inquiry into the Amazonian Rain Forest. The visualization technologies to be used are Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) Worlds and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with satellite images. Both of these uses of visualization draw on recent technological advances. VRML is a standard for viewing and moving through 3D spaces on the World Wide Web. Viewers for it are commonly distributed as plug-ins to popular WWW browsers. GIS is a burgeoning technology for the dynamic display and manipulation of geographic data. Data on the rain forest is available via satellites which have made extensive observations these areas.
The VRML World will allow students to explore the Amazonian Rain Forest as a 3D WWW-accessible environment. This World would include some mature rain forest showing the rain forest canopy and some of the animal life it supports, as well as an area of regrowth, in order to illustrate the complex sequencing of ecologies that occur in the production of a mature rain forest. These visualizations emphasizes an experiential or life-like perspective on the rain forest.
The satellites-eye views on the rain forest showing a synoptic perspective of the rain forest. Views from multiple scales would be supported including a view a land use visualization of the entire Amazonian Basin using 8 km resolution; selected portions as Landsat images with a 30 km resolution; images with 1 meter resolution (if possible) or photographs of the area. Students' activity would focus on the Landsat images which would be available for multiple time periods, thus allowing change over time to be shown. In particular, the NASA Pathfinder project has compiled a half-terrabyte coverage of this area which includes images in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s thus allowing analyses to show change over time. This data base is available for this project's use.
These two types of visualization were selected to provide a students view and a scientist view of the Amazonian Rain Forest. The activities will be designed to link them and thereby lead students from a local focus on life in the rain forest to a more synoptic view that assesses change in the rain forest as a whole. Both views hold substantial potential for science learning. However, it is their integration that holds the best potential for better understanding how students can inquire into remote locations.
A primary issue is how these two forms of visualization can be integrated and mutually supporting. Our strategy is to integrate them through the context of a story. This story will emphasize the diverse perspectives different stake-holders have on the rain forests that the students are visualizing. In particular, the views of indigenous farmers and global systems scientists are contrasted so as to emphasize the differences that arise from choosing differing scales of analysis. Hence, the activity of the student becomes reconciling multiple visualizations of the same area and multiple perspectives on how that land should be used. Through these activities, students are supported in constructing their own narrative of the land use/land changes in the rain forest.
This project aims to produce a WWW-based software prototype where students can explore the rain forest and a proposal for future work. As discussed, the software prototype will allow students to explore a story of the Amazonian Rain Forest from varying view points and varying visualization technologies. In particular, a VRML World allowing a walk-thru of a 3D rain forest will be developed as will via GIS explorations from a satellites eye view. These activities will be accessile over the Internet or via a CD-ROM. The proposal will extend this work by seeking to make it the nucleus of a full fledged project including the development of activities, their deployment in school settings, and an empirical evaluation. Beyond financial assistance, we ask CILT's assistance in properly scoping the proposal, selecting partners, and designing an evaluation plan.
Gordin, D. N., & Pea, R. D. (1995). Prospects for scientific visualization as an educational technology. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(3), 249-279.
Mitchell, L. S. (1991). Young geographers: How they explore the world and how they map the world. New York, NY: Bank Street College of Education. (Original work published 1934).