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Holly Dodson Paula Levin Dave Reynolds Randall Souviney |
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"VisEarth is a collaborative effort by university researchers and classroom teachers to systematically document the teaching and learning opportunities afforded by space-based Earth imagery and other on-line data."
Environmental Systems Research Institute's earthquakes
"...we decided to focus curriculum development on geology and plate tectonics in order to take best advantage of the shuttle images."
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VisEarth is a collaborative effort by university researchers and classroom teachers to systematically document the teaching and learning opportunities afforded by space-based Earth imagery and other on-line data. The richness of the data is illustrated in the above EarthKAM images of Rio de La Plata near Buenos Aires and Lake Menindee along the Darling River in New South Wales, Australia. The project is systematically exploring cognitive outcomes and instructional implications of using geo-information systems (GIS) for analyzing images and other geo-referenced data. We are investigating whether these resources can be effective in helping students improve their scientific visualization skills and their understanding of geoscience concepts. VisEarth was developed as a result of our experience working with teachers on an earlier National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funded project named EarthKAM (originally KidSAT). EarthKAM made it possible for middle school students to control a digital camera on the Space Shuttle from their classrooms (Gore, 1992; Way, Ride & Stork, 1996). The EarthKAM camera has flown on the Space Shuttle four times over the past three years and there are plans for one flight per academic year until the camera is installed on the International Space Station. In orbit, the camera is controlled by an onboard computer that responds to commands sent from the Mission Operations Center (MOC) at UCSD. The MOC provides real-time information about the Shuttle's current position, local weather information and other online resources. Once the EarthKAM project was up and running, it became apparent that we needed to know much more about how teachers and students would actually integrate the Earth images into lessons and projects in the classroom. Initial findings from Chris Halter's SpaceMath project demonstrated the potential for using space-based imagery for teaching and learning. In this project, closely linked to early EarthKAM activities, shuttle images were used by high school algebra and geometry students to explore the mathematical concepts of proportion and curve fitting. How shuttle images might be used to enhance learning in the sciences became a primary focus of the VisEarth Project. Over the three-year duration of the project, we have been observing teachers and students using on-line visualizations and computer simulations in science lessons and have been documenting its use by teachers for lesson design. After each implementation, we have interviewed teachers to elicit information about lesson effectiveness and their assessment of student performance. Finally, we have also administered student pre- and post-tests, described further below, to measure relative gains in science knowledge and visualization skills. The activities of Visualizing Earth were developed by university faculty and researchers at UCSD and SDSU working in close collaboration with the middle and high school teachers. Early on in the development process, we decided to focus curriculum development on geology and plate tectonics in order to take best advantage of the shuttle images. Complementary curriculum development activities at TERC focused on weather and atmospheric studies. All VisEarth teachers and researchers worked with high resolution shuttle images from NASA around which to organize geology lessons. In a trial implementation in Stephanie Buttell-Maxin's third grade class, Eric Frost (SDSU) taught Earth Science topics over a two week period using images, demonstrations, and activities. Since the classroom had no networking capabilities, Frost used hard copies of images of Earth and the solar system taken from space and from Earth. Instead of using computer animations, Frost led the students through the animations having them act out different roles such as a subducting oceanic plate, an earthquake, or the rising portion of a convection cell. Although the third grade students were highly engaged in the activities, we concluded that the subject matter was too far advanced, and focused our curriculum development at middle and high school level. In the next implementation, Kevin Robinson (SDSU) and Holly Dodson (UCSD) developed a two week unit for seventh grade science students, based on topics selected by the classroom teacher, Jay Klopfenstein. Robinson, assisted by Dodson and Klopfenstein, provided instruction for the activities. During the third year of the Visualizing Earth Project, a high school science teacher, Anna Wilder-O'Neil, worked in collaboration with Dodson in developing a series of VisEarth activities which Wilder-O'Neil then taught to her Earth Science students. At this same time, a second middle school science teacher, Dave Reynolds, was working in his own classroom to design activities to take advantage of students' access to space shuttle images. His implementation is described in detail in the next section. Thus, throughout the development and implementation of VisEarth Activities, there was shift in the collaboration of VisEarth personnel. Initially university faculty and researchers took the lead in teaching the lessons with the consultation, assistance, and guidance of classroom teachers. By the end of the project, middle and high school teachers were designing and implementing their own VisEarth activities, with the assistance of university personnel. In all, the geology activities within the VisEarth Project have been developed and implemented in one elementary school, two middle school, and two high school classrooms over the past three years. In this paper, we focus on the implementation of the Visualizing Earth activities by Dave Reynolds, a science teacher at Olive Peirce Middle School (OPMS), located in a rural community near San Diego. Reynolds has participated in the project since it inception and has himself adapted lessons that were previously developed and implemented by project staff at other sites. He adapted the VisEarth activities and co-designed many of the lessons. He taught the lessons independently with project staff observing and providing technical assistance as needed. In the first year of implementation, all six of his eighth grade science classes (190 students) completed the VisEarth lessons described in this paper. The class had access to eight networked PowerPC Macintosh computers for the duration of the unit. Computer based simulations included Our Dynamic Planet, Epicenter, VistaPro, and a fault-identification activity using NIH Image. Color printed and on-line shuttle images were used throughout the implementation. The students, working in groups of four, built three-dimensional physical models from topographic maps and then created topographic maps of the three-dimensional representations they build in VistaPro. The students also learned to use on-line aerial photographs and oriented their 3-D models to the aerial photos. During the second year of implementation, again Reynolds worked with all six of his eighth grade science classes (160 students) on the Visualizing Earth activities. This time 16 networked PowerPC Macintosh computers were available for student use in the classroom, and the activity schedule was expanded by several days to include more time on the programs Our Dynamic Planet, Epicenter, and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) "live earthquake maps" site. |
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