Person:

Udomprasert, Patricia

We give a brief overview of some key features of WorldWide Telescope and its Ambassadors Program, and we describe two goals for expanding the program in the coming year: scaling up training efforts; and developing “plug and play” Visualization Lab modules that teach key Earth and Space Science concepts to students while emphasizing important scientific processes and skills. We discuss several different ways that members of the astronomy education and outreach community can incorporate WWT-based materials into their work.

We report preliminary results from an NSF-funded project to build, test, and research the impact of a WorldWide Telescope Visualization Lab (WWT Vizlab), meant to offer learners a deeper physical understanding of the causes of the Moon's phases. The Moon Phases VizLab is designed to promote accurate visualization of the complex, three dimensional Earth-Sun-Moon relationships required to understand the Moon's phases, while also providing opportunities for middle school students to practice critical science skills, like using models, making predictions and observations, and linking them in evidence-based explanations. In the VizLab, students use both computer-based models and lamp + ball physical models. We present findings from the first two phases of the study---one in which we compared learning gains from the WWT VizLab with a traditional two dimensional Moon phases simulator, and another in which we experimented with different ways of blending physical and virtual models in the classroom.

In our presentation, we demonstrated some key features of the WorldWide Telescope (WWT). Here we describe the results of a WWT Ambassadors (WWTA) Pilot Study where volunteer Ambassadors helped sixth-graders use WWT during a six-week astronomy unit. The results of the study compare learning outcomes for 80 students who participated in WWTA and 70 students at the same school and grade who only used traditional learning materials. After the six-week unit, twice as many “WWT” as “non-WWT” students understood complex three dimensional orbital relationships; tremendous gains were seen in student performance in science overall, astronomy in particular, and even in using “real” telescopes. We describe plans for expansion of the WWTA program.

We develop three-dimensional mental models of our physical environs from two dimensional imagery we collect with our eyes. This is possible only because we move through that environment, viewing it from multiple perspectives, and construct a model consistent with a collection of two-dimensional views. The technique works well for structures whose sizes are comparable to the magnitude of our movements, such as rooms, buildings, and even cities; but for much larger structures, we are effectively limited to a single perspective, and therefore must create mental models from indirect measures. The astronomical realm is almost always in this latter category, and student understanding of the structure of the universe is limited by their inability to use multi-perspective techniques to generate an accurate mental image of astronomical structure. Without an accurate model, students tend to underestimate the distances to and between astronomical objects, leading to inaccurate assumptions regarding the overall size of the universe, the interactions between celestial objects, and our location within and among these structures. To improve student understanding of the size, scale, and structure of our universe, we have developed hybrid laboratory activities based on a mix of hands-on discovery with physical models and multiperspective visualization using the WorldWide Telescope (WWT) virtual environment. WWT, developed by Microsoft Research, managed and supported by the American Astronomical Society, and freely available to the world community, represents real astronomical data in a three-dimensional environment that students can investigate from a variety of physical perspectives. They can virtually “fly through” astronomical structures and thus use the same techniques they use in their local everyday environment to develop an accurate mental model on an astronomical scale. These new lab activities connect indirect measurements of distance and structure (based on real astronomical data) to visualizations of those same structures, so that students understand the techniques by which structure is measured, and create accurate mental models of those structures. This not only improves their understanding of their astronomical environs, but also improves their understanding of the physical processes that occur in our universe. We will present examples of these activities, and assessment data measuring the improvement in student understanding of astronomical size, scale, and structure, as a result of their interactions with these materials.