King’s CRYSTAL Center for Visualization in Science Geowall and Beyond…

A Brief Word from our Sponsor… The following is a collaboration between the Visualization Center for Science Education at The King’s University College and The CRYSTAL-Alberta project. Hence forth … The King’s Crystal Center for for Visualization in Science Visualization in Science

The Plan… What Do We Mean by Visualization? The King’s Crystal Center for Visualization in Science –Past –Present, Including a short GEOWALL tour –Future

Visualization - An Integral Part of Learning: Seeing and perception Seeing in the “Minds Eye” “Seeing” can take place with senses other than your eyes Visualization as metaphor for perceiving Visualization plays a critical role in understanding – both the understanding of the student as well as the understanding of the researcher

Past –MAP project –Applet Development with/for Alberta Learning –Gordon Research Conferences on Visualization in Science and Education The King’s Crystal Center for Visualization in Science

What is MAP? A six-year project involving collaboration of 3 post- secondary institutions in the province of Alberta (King’s University College, U. of Calgary, U. of Alberta) as well as the Ministry of Education for the Province of Alberta. MAP provided high quality learning, WWW- deliverable objects for the teaching of the first 3 terms of university level Physics and scalable to meet the needs of most high school curricula

Project MAP Executive Directors: David Austen, Wytze Brouwer, Hans Laue, Brian Martin Project Associates: Terry Singleton, Peter Wright Programmers (MAP_North): –Nathan Laan, Dave Ooms, Phil Martin, Peter Uitvlught, Rob McQuarrie, Tyler Luchko, Mike Schuurman, Brian Martin FLASH: Travis Whyte, Leah Martin Content: Leah Martin, Nicole Albert, Melody Russel, Brian Martin So who are we?...

A closer look at MAP Highly modularized collection of “learning objects” including: –over 150 applets and applications extensive FLASH animation library –Video and Lab interfacing via JAVA applications –student tutorial modules –extensive interactive questions with attention paid to conceptual questions as well as numeric response Objects can be stand-alone or embedded within user designed navigation tools

Some terms… Learning object: a small, concept focused content item (applet, Flash animation, QT movie etc) Applet: small program created in JAVA or Flash and intended to be transmitted via the web Application: stand-alone program in JAVA to be installed and run locally on a user’s machine

MAP is built on a constructivist learning model and all learning objects are designed to encourage (demand?) student interactivity Concept focused Tutorial modules are usually designed to involve a pair of students in conversation but can run “solo” Pedagogic Design and Philosophy

Address pre-conceptions Augment student experience Bridge the transition from conceptual to quantitative Aid in the visualization of complex phenomena Classifying Applets by Function

they are designed to address a well-known preconception (i.e. one identified in the research literature) they are entirely qualitative in both “input” and “output” they allow the student to draw directly on the applet the expected outcome and then to compare this with the “correct” result simulated by the computer the applets are designed to be attractive and “non- intimidating” Designing Applets which Address Pre-conceptions

Conceptual Applets...

2-Dimensional Motion (vectoral nature of acceleration and velocity) Encourages “interaction” or play with the ideas of velocity and acceleration Applets that augment student experience... "This gadget really helps visualize it!" "I can see it happening." "It was nice to see the ball moving so we can picture the skateboarder or whatever we are looking at" "… good assignment …" "The assignment was good, but it would be better if it did not take 10 minutes to get into the program. I could probably do it from home much faster" "It would have been okay, except for the problems with the computer" "This program is interesting, but not for a very long time" "I thought learning this way was extremely difficult and hard to understand. I prefer note taking and chances to ask you questions when they arise." "I'm not good with the computer - too slow of a connection" "This was awesome and fun"

Circuit Builder Applets that Bridge the Transition from Conceptual to Quantitative

The Incline Visualization of force vectors Graphical visualization tools Can stimulate “what if…” questions Applets that Bridge the Transition from Conceptual to Quantitative

Man on the Ladder Applets that Bridge the Transition from Conceptual to Quantitative

Atwood’s Pulley Applets that Bridge the Transition from Conceptual to Quantitative

Sonic Booms Applets that Help the Student Visualize Complex Phenomena

Car on a banked roadway Applets that Help the Student Visualize Complex Phenomena

Ripple Tank Applets that Help the Student Visualize Complex Phenomena

Slit-Diffraction Applets that Help the Student Visualize Complex Phenomena

Thin Film Interference Applets that Help the Student Visualize Complex Phenomena

Gordon Research Conference on Visualization in Science & Education, Oxford, July 2005 Mahaffy (Chair) Martin (Workshop Leader) Geelan (Workshop Leader) Flowing water in SE Jordan NASA Satellite Image NSF Funding (Research on Learning and Education)

“ Touching Molecules with Bare Hands:” Augmented Reality Arthur Olson, Scripps Research Institute Co-Vice Chair, 2007 Gordon Research Conference

 New Emphases  Role of Haptics in Visualization  Best practices in production and dissemination of educational visualizations  Visualization in genomics and systems biology  Computer graphics / cognitive science interface  Visualization for public understanding of science  Physical models and touch in forming mental models  Geo-Wall 3D visualization applied to other disciplines

Post-Conference Minigrant Program Setting Directions for Visualization Research Promote new collaboration between investigators in at least two disciplines Include expertise in visualization from both the production and evaluation communities or from both a scientific and the learning or cognitive communities. Only one third of the submitted proposals funded Previous workshop and mini-grant program evaluated by L. Jones, et. al. in Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2005, 6 (3),

Student View of Visualization: What do They See? Mary Jane Shultz, Tufts University, Medford, MA Ghislain Deslongchamps, U. of New Brunswick, Canada Mike Stieff, UC Davis, CA Mary Hegarty, UC Santa Barbara, CA Focus: Using eye tracker tools to refine student interaction with the relevant parts of electrostaic potential surfaces and Flash animations of molecular mechanics to generate guidelines for creation of images that focus the viewer’s attention while conveying a specific point.

Addressing Misconceptions in the Understanding of Global Climate Change Through Visualization Mike Stieff, UC-Davis, CA Brian Martin, King’s University College, Edmonton David Geelan, University of Alberta, Edmonton Robert Simmon, NASA – GSFC, MD Focus: produce prototypes of visualizations representing satellite data over time in response to an inventory of misconceptions concerning global climate change to study the role scientific visualizations play in bringing about conceptual change in secondary students.concerning global climate change

Developing and Understanding Animations of Cloud Formation Oswaldo Garcia, San Francisco State University, CA Barbara Tversky, Columbia University Kristin Henry, GalaxyGoo, CA Focus: Are animations broken into natural steps more effective than continuously running ones in explaining cloud formation to geoscience students?

Enhancing Students' Spatial Skills with Geographical Information Systems Bob Kolvoord, James Madison University, VA David Uttal, Northwestern University, IL Danny Edelson, Northwestern University, IL Focus: a pilot study in grades 4 and 7 exploring the impact of the use of geographic information system (GIS) software on student spatial cognition skills.

Spatial Visualization from Nano- (and smaller) Scales to Planetary Scales Niescja E. Turner, Florida Institute of Technology, FL Luis Martínez, University of Texas at El Paso, TX Mary Hegarty, University of California at Santa Barbara, CA Focus: Does 3D computer visualization help low or high-spatial visualizers the most and does scale and experience matter?

Present –NSF Global Climate Change (Mahaffy, Stief, Geelan, Simmon, Martin) –CRYSTAL Visualizing the Unseen Grade 5 science: visualizing Carbon Dioxide as it applies to climate and chemistry (Gustafson, McDougal at al) Applying GEOWALL to visualizing chemical structures (Mahaffy, Martin, Vederas, et al) Visualizing subatomic phenomena (Martin, Brouwer, Visser et al) –CRYSTAL Global Climate Change Science 10: Energy Flow in Global Systems (Geelan et al) –CRYSTAL Visualization: State of the Art Review (Philips et al) The King’s Crystal Center for Visualization in Science

Hardware/Software Capabilities –GEOWALL –QuickTimeVR –HyperChem –Flash/ JAVA/ VPython –BRYCE and Blender 3D rendering environments Expertise –Martin (Physics & Astronomy), Mahaffy (Chemistry) –Working With Leading Visualization Researchers Bringing Together the Learning of Science and the Science of Learning –Undergraduate Programmers (starting May, 2006) –Collaborative teams with researchers and classroom teachers The King’s Crystal Center for Visualization in Science – The Present

Welcome to GEOWALL! GEOWALL in use during lecture at the Gordon Research Conference in Visualization in Science July 2005, Oxford UK

I. Geowall – Technical Considerations Uses 2-matched DLP projectors (“left” & “right”) each outputting a plane polarized image rotated 90 0 wrt the other. Screen is “daylite” type – polarization preserving Eyeglasses “decode” left and right eye information – your brain does the rest!

Geowall – Technical Considerations Left-channel imageRight-channel image Left channel image is projected through the left channel DLP projector and is plane- polarized as shown Right channel image is projected through the right channel DLP projector and is plane- polarized as shown

Geowall – Technical Considerations Projectors are stacked vertically with 3 rotational and translational degrees-of- freedom Computer should be equipped with a video board capable of running 2 monitors Passive stereo – image “stacking” Crude alignment can be achieved using separate monitor windows from each projector

Geowall – Technical Considerations Left and Right channel polaroids are placed in front of the lens – avoid touching the lenses as conducted heat will quickly (< 1 hour) degrade filters Final alignment achieved by using stereoviewer and the Geowall alignment image Not quite!BetterGood (not perfect)! Congratulations – you are ready for stereo projection! for stereo projection!

More on Creating Stereo Images Digital Camera –Two images contain all of the stereo information needed for your brain to produce a stereo pair Translate camera L to R

More on Creating Stereo Images 3D Image rendering software –Blender – freeware (outstanding package but steep learning curve) –Bryce (more accessible but not free) Either offset “camera” or scene and render both L and R channel images.

III. Free Software that Supports Stereo Projection Chemistry/Biology: –JMOL –Pymol –VMD –Protein Explorer Physics/Astronomy –VPython –Astrowall suite –Wallview

GEOWALL – 3 examples Looking a CRYSTAL Structure (VMD) Visualizing Hoffmann Structures (VMD) Visualizing the magnetic field in a solenoid (VPYTHON)

Visualizing the World Too Small To See: Small Matters Christina deMatteis, University of Nottingham

Tudor Bumback, Age 13, Romania IUPAC/SAW Global Poster Competition It’s a Chemical World

The Importance of Multiple Representations at the Molecular Level Roy Tasker, Univ. Western Sydney Models in Chemistry “The most powerful thing you can do when you’re learning chemistry is to zoom down, in your mind’s eye, to the molecular level and try to imagine what is going on and in a sense, try to understand the personalities of the reactants and products… Having each type of model show a different aspect is ideal. Because then students don’t look at a particular model and say: that’s reality.”

Importance of Different Levels of “Seeing Chemistry” P. Mahaffy, Journal of Chemical Education, Jan. 2006, 83,

Future –Provide an ongoing resource for CRYSTAL projects Expertise in: Molecular Modeling, FLASH/ActionScript, JAVA, BRYCE, QuickTimeVR, GEOWALL, etc Access to programmers and visualization specialists Quick prototyping and “proof of concept” The King’s Crystal Center for Visualization in Science