What are the advantages and disadvantages offered by visualizations for telling stories? For example, what can they do particularly well? What do they help make visible that is difficult to convey in other ways? When are they not effective?
What role do visualizations play in helping students understand or interpret data? What are their unique strengths? What are their downsides?
How do visualizations facilitate communication? Are there particular features of visualizations that make them more effective as communication tools for scientists? For educators? For students? For the press or other mass media? For teaching undergraduate geoscience?
From the points of view of visualization creators, faculty, researchers, and specialists in education and cognition: What are the major challenges to teaching geosciences with visualizations?
What are the new tools, new ideas, or new horizons that will make big changes in how we use visualizations in teaching in the next 5 years?
Are different kinds of visualizations particularly effective for different kinds of instruction? What is the range of ways in which visualizations are used in instruction? What makes a visualization particularly effective in each of these uses?
How can visualizations be used to help students communicate their thinking and their understanding to the instructor? How can visualizations be used to advance assessment of student learning?
