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Data-Driven Versus Concept-Driven Visualizations

In a much underappreciated paper, Aaron C. Clark & Eric N. Wiebe of North Carolina State University draw a distinction that should be front and center in the minds of every person who teaches with or learns from scientific visualizations: a distinction between what they call "concept-driven" and "data-driven" visualizations.

From the point of view of a teacher or learner, data-driven and concept-driven visualizations have different affordances and different pitfalls. More

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Through a Lens Darkly and Then Face to Face*

I've been hiking every Sunday this past fall with a group of geology majors--the Sunday Hiking Club. We are doing a service-learning project to create trailside posters and websites that explain the natural history of popular trails in the mountains surrounding our town. While on our hikes, all of the students are taking digital photographs of their experiences on the trail, and the archives of these images will serve as the raw materials for the story lines we'll present to the public. At the simplest level, our trailside posters will help direct the attention of interested hikers to the wonders they'll encounter along the trail. The premise is that the hike may be a bit more enjoyable and meaningful for recreational hikers if they know what special features to look for along the way. For the hiking public, their original motivation for going on the hike may range from exercise to aesthetics, but we think we can slip in a little science education along the way. The accompanying websites will be a bit more detailed, with in-depth information for further personal investigation with resources such as geologic maps, articles that are accessible for reading by the public, archives of annotated images, and links to related instructional sites. In observing Nature through my own lens, and also observing my students as they themselves look at the world with focused attention through their cameras, I came to realize vaguely at first, and then with increased clarity, the transformative power of photography as an instructional activity. More

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Turning Nature into Numbers

Supporters of 350ppm target for atm. C0₂ <source>

On October 24, 2009, environmental activists around the world gathered in support of a geophysical data point. With their bodies, banners, and balloons, they formed the numeral 350, advocating that governments should adopt 350 ppm as a target for atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. How remarkable that a number should have such rallying power. How remarkable that humans are able to conceptualize the invisible stuff we live within and breathe into our bodies as a substance made of numbers. Our ability to do so is an end product of a long series of insights and inventions by our scientific predecessors.

For hundreds of year, a major activity and accomplishment of Earth Scientists and our predecessor natural historians, has been to turn experienced reality into numbers. Earth Science is sometimes dismissed as merely a "descriptive" or "observational" science, but such an attitude understates both the vastness and the power (and the pitfalls) of the enterprise of mathematicizing that which had previously only been known through non-quantitative human senses.

I can jump into a pond or the ocean and sense its temperature with sensors in my skin and describe my sensation in words: "Warm," "Not so cold, come on in," "Cold," "Icey." With the invention of the thermometer, approximately 400 years ago, it became possible to turn these feelings into numbers. Over the same 400 year stretch of time, many attributes and processes of the Earth were turned into numbers: the power of an earthquake, the height of a mountain, the swiftness of the wind, the saltiness of the ocean, the density of minerals, etc., etc.

Why was this considered a good thing to do? More

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Why Nature is Quiet and the Built Environment is Noisy

Is this car too quiet?

This story highlights a profound difference between the built environment and the natural environment: We expect the built environment to be noisy, and we expect nature to be quiet. More

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Helping Parents Help Their Children to Discover Nature

I was on a trail run last week up to Sacagawea Peak, a popular hiking destination in the northern Bridger Range. I stopped to admire a herd of mountain goats when I encountered a young family on the trail. The boy, perhaps age 9, was just bubbling with excitement. His pockets were bulging and his hands were full of prized rock samples. He had found a treasure trove of fossils. I introduced myself as a geologist and asked if I could see his samples. We sorted through his treasures, and I helped identify brachiopods, rugose corals, a few fragments of some colonial "brain" corals, and some crinoid fragments (no calyxes today, but they can be found). (And yes, even though I'm a metamorphic petrologist I can still fully appreciate the diversity and beauty of these fossil assemblages). The crest of the Bridger Range is capped by the Mississippian Madison Limestone, and many horizons are extremely rich in these fossil beds. I pointed out that on their next visit if they go just over the pass they will find a layer of columnar structures that are known as "bioherms" and these were deposited by layering of algal mats formed along the margin of a shallow, warm sea. I also directed their attention to the cliffs above us that have been tilted to a near-vertical orientation and folded in an intricate pattern. They thanked me for this information and we went on our way.

Reflecting farther up the trail, the most interesting part of this chance encounter was my conversation with the parents. More