Share Paper: Teaching Complex Earth Science Systems through Interactive Visualizations

  1. Satyugjit Virk, Teachers College Columbia University, United States

Abstract: It is important to visually link abstract science representations, here earth science maps, to concrete everyday instances. An interactive simulation with guiding exercises where glacial maps were linked to an interactive animation where users could swipe off chunks of glacial ice to see how water would rise at South Seaport Manhattan demonstrated significant gains in learning on short answer and drawing questions vs. a control who read the same information on a website (N=18). This pilot demonstrated how effective linking symbolic representations like maps to concrete, interactive visuals can be for earth science learning involving maps.