VISUALIZATION FOR LEARNERS - A FRAMEWORK FOR ADAPTING SCIENTISTS TOOLS

The use of scientific investigation tools for education is receiving c onsiderable attention as a result of an increased emphasis in the educ ational community on open-ended inquiry. The scientific community poss esses a treasure trove of tools that could be adapted for use by learn ers. Scientific visualization technologies, in particular, offer great promise for education because of the way they use visual representati ons to Facilitate exploration of complex data. However, the tools that are used by scientists are inappropriate for learners because of thei r reliance on the tacit knowledge of expert users. Through a careful c onsideration of the differences between scientists and science student s and the design of a series of scientific visualization environments for learners in grades 8-16, we have developed a design framework for the creation of scientific investigation tools based on those of scien tists. The framework highlights five critical issues for the construct ion of tools to support inquiry-based learning: motivating context, le arner-appropriate activities, data selection, scaffolding interfaces a nd support for learning. We have applied this framework to the design of ClimateWatcher, a scientific visualization environment for the inve stigation of issues related to global climate and climate change that is now in use in middle school, high school and university settings. ( C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.