Science is best learned through observation and hands-on exploration. It is with this premise in mind that researchers from the Visualization and Interactive Spaces (VIS) Lab at Indiana University’s Pervasive Technology Institute are developing several technology devices that help to teach science in a way that is both interactive and fun for school children.

The Down by the Water Program is a collection of tools for exploring data and science concepts related to Indiana Watersheds and water quality. The VIS Lab efforts in Down by the Water are an extension of its continuing involvement in Discovering the Science of the Environment (DSE), an ongoing environmental education program. While the DSE program reaches students through a mobile science education trailer, Down by the Water expands these educational efforts, reaching students and educators beyond what can be achieved by the DSE trailer.

Down by the Water consists of several tools actively being developed within the VIS Lab:

•    Handheld Tablet Tool.  The Handheld Tablet is a data collection tool designed for use by middle-school students participating in field trips to local streams or wetlands. The software tool runs on handheld Internet Tablet computers from Nokia.  The application guides students through the steps of making observations about the stream and taking measurements of the stream’s physical and chemical properties. Students track properties such as temperature, pH, and nitrate levels.  More than a digital clipboard, the software application poses questions along the way, prompting students to think critically about the data they are collecting.  When students have completed the data collection protocol, they use the handheld tool to upload their data via a wireless connection to a database that is hosted in the VIS Lab.  During 2008, this tool was used by hundreds of Indiana schoolchildren in grades five through eleven.

•    Data Archive.  Students using the handheld field tool upload their data to a repository at IUPUI.  Once back in the classroom, students and their teachers can access the data for subsequent analysis and for use in math or science inquiry exercises.

•    Trailer Tools for Data Analysis.  Discovering the Science of the Environment operates a 20-foot long mobile science education trailer.  The trailer has a 50-inch panel built into one outside wall, as well as multiple 30-inch monitors inside.  During the Fall semester, the Lab developed a set of kid-friendly visualization tools to be used in conjunction with the stream-side field trips.  The tools aggregate the data and serve to show students how the data they collected contributes to the bigger picture.  Using interactive animated graphs, charts, and calculators, these applications display the data that students have just collected and uploaded, allowing them to answer a variety of questions about their stream’s health and habitat quality.   

•    On-line Interactives.  These applications, currently under development, provide an online set of stream sites where students and their teachers can use virtual tools. These tools are used to sample the water, collect data, and analyze their data in terms of stream dynamics and water quality.  Two tools are in development.  The macro-invertebrate identification exercise is a digital recreation of an outdoor science activity popular with younger grades, based on the idea that the types of critters found in a stream are reasonably good indicators of stream quality.  A water chemistry activity will provide an on-line analog of the observation and measurement procedures used with the in-the-field Handheld Tablet Tool.