February 26-28, 2004
Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Visualizing the Earth, its processes, and its evolution through time is a fundamental aspect of geoscience. Geoscientists use a wide variety of tools to assist them in creating their own mental images. For example, we now use multilayered visualizations of geographically referenced data to analyze the relationships between different variables and we create animations to look at changes in data or model output through time. This workshop focused the use of visualization tools in teaching geoscience by addressing the question "How do we teach geoscience with visualizations effectively?"
Participants included geoscientists who are leaders in using visualizations in their classroom, learning scientists who study how we perceive and learn from visualizations, and creators of visualizations and visualization tools. Workshop goals: to
- share information about state of the art work in the development and use of visualizations and their application to teaching geoscience
- to develop an action plan for steps that will lead to development of more effective visualizations for use in teaching geoscience and their effective use;
- to foster collaborations among the participants and develop a community working in this area; and
- to develop a web-site with resources, examples, and information about developing and teaching geoscience with visualizations.
Workshop Organizers
Conveners: Cathryn A Manduca (Carleton College) and Michelle Hall-Wallace (University of Arizona)
Planning Team: Jim Slotta (University of California, Berkeley), Barbara Tversky (Stanford University), Dave Mogk (Montana State University), Barbara Tewksbury (Hamilton College)
Workshop Report Poster (PowerPoint 187kB May24 04)
Presented by Cathy Manduca at the 2004 Joint Assembly in Montreal, Canada.
Many of the resources that were developed for and by the workshop have been moved to the topical site on Teaching Geoscience with Visualizations. Check there for teaching activities, essays, tool descriptions and education researcher pages.
Animation in banner courtesy of Don Middleton, NCAR