Toward a General Scientific Visualization Architecture for Education

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9453715 Edelson The techniques of scientific visualization have had a tremendous impact on the practice of science over a relatively short period of time because of the unparalleled capacity scientific visualization provides for human observations of relationships, patterns, and processes in large quantities data. This research will attempt to demonstrate that the techniques of scientific visualization can have a similar impact in educational environments for similar reasons. The goal of the research is to assess whether the use of scientific visualization in the course of inquiry-based learning can enable students across the spectrum of academic ability to develop a scientific understanding of complex, even chaotic phenomena, such as climate, weather, and atmospheric greenhouse effect. Understanding of these complex natural phenomena has been out of reach of all but the brightest and most highly motivated students with traditional instructional techniques. Our previous research has demonstrated that scientific visualization can be a valuable learning tool for students engaged in inquiry-based learning. However, this research also revealed the need for a software architecture for scientific visualization that provides learner support targeted specifically at the use of visualization in the course of inquiry-based learning. This research-guided transformation of tools and techniques developed for use by scientists into environments to support students in the development of robust scientific understanding is a significant challenge. As part of this research, we will develop and evaluate supportive scientific visualization environments for the study of two important areas of atmospheric science: climate/weather and atmospheric greenhouse effect. Using these environments, we will conduct a set of four studies designed to examine the prospects and the challenges of scientific visualization as technology for secondary science education. In these studies, we will examine the ways in which the supportive scientific visualization architecture, in comparison to other instructional approaches, can impact both students' conceptual understanding and the process by which they conduct scientific inquiry. We uill examine the process by which students learn to make sense from scientific visualizations and the way that scientific visualization environments are adopted in inquiry-based classrooms. ***