Introducing Preservice STEM Teachers to Computer Science: A Narrative of Theoretically Oriented Design

This paper narrates the process of designing a curricular unit that serves to introduce preservice science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers to computer science (CS) education. Unlike most literature that focuses on results and findings, this paper explains how a justice-centered approach to CS education informed decisions about the theoretical underpinnings of curricular design choices. Situated in issues related to the gentrification of Austin, Texas, the described curricular unit explores how the increased use of CS and growth of the technology sector are having a direct impact on the historically marginalized residents of East Austin. Connected by a theme that maps are both a form of data visualization and political artifact, the described curricular unit uses CS as a tool to: critique the macro-ethics of politics and society; provide a CS learning environment that can be responsive to the multiple social identities of students; and connect CS to larger struggles for justice and liberation.Educatio

VRSC 2021 Conference Proceedings

The biennial conference aims to catalyze ideas and innovation between academia, practice, NGOs and government agencies who work to address analysis, planning, valuation, design and management of visual resources. The aim of the 2021 Virtual Conference is to share ideas and discuss the issues associated with the assessment and protection of visual resources in an era of major landscape change - regionally, national and globally

Experimenter's Laboratory for Visualized Interactive Science

ELVIS (Experimenter's Laboratory for Visualized Interactive Science) is an interactive visualization environment that enables scientists, students, and educators to visualize and analyze large, complex, and diverse sets of scientific data. It accomplishes this by presenting the data sets as 2-D, 3-D, color, stereo, and graphic images with movable and multiple light sources combined with displays of solid-surface, contours, wire-frame, and transparency. By simultaneously rendering diverse data sets acquired from multiple sources, formats, and resolutions and by interacting with the data through an intuitive, direct-manipulation interface, ELVIS provides an interactive and responsive environment for exploratory data analysis

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Widely Available 3-D Visualization Tools in Support of Public Participation

There is a persistent need for improved tools and techniques to facilitate public involvement in transportation decision making. Despite continuous improvements in increasing public involvement at all phases of transportation decision making, transportation agencies are still seeking more affordable, accessible, and effective means of communicating with a wide range of stakeholders. The report documents a survey of a wide variety of transportation agencies on their use of interactive 3-D visualization for public involvement using an electronic survey. Supplemental qualitative data was generated through telephone interviews with selected survey participants. It concludes with three case studies illustrating applications of interactive 3-D visualization to support public involvement in transportation decision making. The report concludes that the use of interactive 3-D mapping, although pervasive in transportation planning and design, is at the early stages of application as a public involvement tool. Most agencies use the tools for the purposes of informing stakeholders, illustrating the location of proposed projects, or plans or programs of projects in a regional or study area context, but not for engaging them in a specific dialogue in a meeting, workshop, or on-line chat forum

Teaching Climate Literacy Using Geospatial Tools

Antarctica is the world’s coldest, driest and windiest continent. It is a harsh environment that few people will ever see but it is a very important part of our Earth system. Over the past 34 million years the climate in Antarctica has deteriorated from one that supported lush vegetation to the conditions observed today. By studying this trend and the associated changes to ice and vegetation we can gain critical insight into climate changes taking place today. This thesis presents three pieces of curricula that will help students and the general public understand some of the research currently underway in Antarctica while introducing them to geospatial tools that can be used to study climate and other large spatial and temporal events. The first paper guides students through an investigation of changing palynological distributions over time. In the activities described, students will use these data to infer climatic change on different geologic time scales and in different locales. Students will use published data-sets to trace changes in plant assembly over the past 34 million years on the Antarctic Peninsula as well as to understand the demise of the North American Ice Sheet during the last 20,000 years. The activity also introduces the use of GeoMapApp mapping software for the preparation of geo-spatial imagery and data processing. In the second paper, I outline a forensics activity that is based on actual cases where pollen has been used to solve crimes. This paper outlines a method to geo-locate a crime scene by combining Google Earth and data from NOAA’s paleo-climate website. Here the focus is on spatial, rather than temporal, changes in climate and flora. Finally, I present an activity that uses GeoMapApp and multi-beam sonar data from the Ross Sea to find and map megascale glacial lineations which can then be used to infer paleo-ice stream locations and grounding zone wedges that were laid down during the last glacial maximum

Sharing Vision for Shared Spaces: Mobile Immersive Planning and Community-led Design of Green Spaces in Richmond’s Southside

This plan seeks to demonstrate the potential of immersive technologies, specifically augmented reality, in strengthening public engagement and enabling the collaborative, community led design of local green spaces. Community engagement, while now a focal point of urban planning education, is still implemented in uneven strategies that often further distance the public from the process and understanding of city vision; new paradigms of outreach and community-government knowledge sharing must be explored to overcome common constraints of time, expertise, and language that prevent public participation in projects that directly impact their health. Immersive urban planning offers a way to bring people into the local process above and beyond traditional approaches by providing tools for autonomous exploration and imagination of public space, particularly neighborhood pocket parks and green spaces. In this project, one site designated for future city park development in Richmond’s South side Windsor neighborhood (currently known as “Broad Rock Creek Park”) acts as a pilot location for a mobile-based augmented reality land-use planning experiment. At the park and sites in the surrounding walk shed area, community members will be approached to use this technology to visualize, problem solve, and design their ideal future green space by overlaying virtually represented landscape features onto the physical space. Using community survey responses and an AR landscape architecture design tool, user experiences and final design outputs will be analyzed to determine perceptions of the tool and common goals for the future park. This project will serve as an important steppingstone in transforming community participation by offering a tool to facilitate design made by and for neighborhood members

Feasibility of visualization and simulation applications to improve work zone safety and mobility

Visualization is a relatively recent tool available to engineers for enhancing transportation project design through improved communication, decision making, and stakeholder feedback. Current visualization techniques include image composites, video composites, 2-D drawings, drive-through or fly-through animations, three-dimensional (3-D) rendering models, virtual reality, and four-dimensional (4-D) CAD. These methods are used mainly to communicate within the design and construction team and between the team and external stakeholders. Use of visualization improves understanding of design intent and project concepts, and facilitates effective decision making. Visualization tools, however, typically are used for presentation only in large-scale urban projects. Visualization is not accepted widely due to a lack of demonstrated engineering benefits for typical agency projects, such as small and medium size projects, rural projects, and projects where external stakeholder communication is not a major issue. Furthermore, there is a perceived high cost of investment of both financial and human capital in adopting visualization tools. The most advanced visualization technique of virtual reality has been used only in academic research settings, and 4-D CAD has been used on a very limited basis for highly complicated specialty projects. However, there are a number of less technically sophisticated visualization methods available that may provide some benefit to many agency projects. Survey results show that respondents have neutral ideas of adopting visualization techniques used in work zone construction. However, t-test analyses of survey results show that the younger generation and persons familiar with technology believe visualization techniques can be useful more so than people of older generations or those who are not familiar with technology. In this dissertation, a work zone visualization model was developed by creating 3-D models linked with scheduling data. The visualization file was saved as a .kmz format file to be used and sent over the Internet. After viewing the developed work zone visualization, a focus group and project team members of the 24th Street Bridge Project believed the visualization would be useful as a low cost technique for communicating during construction and was adopted as an alternative visualization tool on the construction project website. In this dissertation, results of a feasibility study are presented examining the use of visualization applications for improving work zone planning, design, construction, safety, and mobility