Introducing the Atmospheric Visualization Collection
Abstract
The Atmospheric Visualization Collection is a digital library collection, a section in the NSF's National Science Digital Library. The collection has two essential components. The first is an archive of images based on data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program. The second is a collection of educational material based on atmospheric science concepts that use these data images. The data image archive focuses on the ARM Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, which has the largest collection of ground-based remote-sensing atmospheric instruments. Our visualization tools are automated to create the data images for both archival and real-time uses. ARM instrument mentors and ARM scientist as well as other scientists involved in campaigns at the ARM SGP site review our visualization work for scientific quality. While the archive of weather images was initially created for scientists, collaboration with teachers has identified many of the barriers to educational use. This revealed the need for more educationally friendly interfaces into our weather images and the need for greater documentation. One of the results is our geophysical focus area interface, allowing teachers and students to access these data images. The visualization tools used to produce these data images are available through an open source repository. Testing with undergraduate students has demonstrated the usability of these tools with data from the ARM Archive for class projects. While the task of reviewing and improving user interfaces continues, we have reached a stage where educators and students can easily access our atmospheric data images. An initial set of peer reviewed lesson plans based on these data images has been the basis for workshops to introduce teachers to the AVC. To further involve these teachers a Lesson Plan Sandbox. The Lesson Plan Sandbox allows teachers to submit their lesson plans to share with others, to review lesson plans submitted by other teachers, and to add improvements to existing lesson plans while keeping a copy of the previous version. All of this is done using only a browser. The most recent development is a lesson plan interface that lets users search lesson plans by the appropriate National Science Education Standard level or by keywords. The AVC seeks to provide research data in an accessible manner to both the research and educational communities. Currently the AVC averages 250-300 unique users per week with visitors from over 50 countries. While some users are from the scientific community, many of the users are students and teachers who are independently pursuing their scientific interests in atmospheric science.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002AGUFMED61B0026K
- Keywords:
-
- 0320 Cloud physics and chemistry;
- 1610 Atmosphere (0315;
- 0325);
- 3337 Numerical modeling and data assimilation;
- 3360 Remote sensing;
- 6605 Education