Meaningful Use of Animation and Simulation in the Science Classroom

Science classes should place a strong emphasis on incorporating educational technologies, such as animations, interactive computer programs and various other technologies into the classroom. The use of animations and computer based simulations throughout instruction increases student understanding and achievement (Rosen, 2009). The use of educational technology in the science classroom, not only helps with student understanding of content, but also positively impacts students’ engagement in lessons and their attitudes towards learning (Shu-Nu, Yau-Yuen & May, 2009). Studies have shown that instruction in a science classroom should incorporate students being actively engaged in the material in order for maximum achievement to occur. Students need to be able to take concepts from the science classroom and apply them to their everyday lives. Through the use of animations and simulations this connection can be bridged more effectively than through traditional instruction. The incorporation of computer animations and models provide enhancement and relevance to science learning. Incorporating more educational technology such as animations and computer-based simulations is of ever increasing importance because federal legislation mandates an emphasis on technology integration in all areas of K-12 education (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). Under this mandate, education leaders at the state and local levels are expected to develop plans to effectively utilize educational technologies, such as simulations in the classroom

Animating Unpredictable Effects

Uncanny computer-generated animations of splashing waves, billowing smoke clouds, and characters’ flowing hair have become a ubiquitous presence on screens of all types since the 1980s. This Open Access book charts the history of these digital moving images and the software tools that make them. Unpredictable Visual Effects uncovers an institutional and industrial history that saw media industries conducting more private R&D as Cold War federal funding began to wane in the late 1980s. In this context studios and media software companies took concepts used for studying and managing unpredictable systems like markets, weather, and fluids and turned them into tools for animation. Unpredictable Visual Effects theorizes how these animations are part of a paradigm of control evident across society, while at the same time exploring what they can teach us about the relationship between making and knowing

Amplitude Malformation in the IFFT Ocean Wave Rendering under the Influence of the Fourier Coefficient

Although Tessendorf’s IFFT Gerstner wave model has been widely used, the value of A, a constant of the Fourier coefficient, is not given. A will strongly influence the shape of the rendered ocean wave and even cause amplitude malformation. We study the algorithm of the IFFT Gerstner wave, and give the method of A calculating. The method of the paper can guarantee there is no amplitude malformation in rendered ocean waves. The expression of the IFFT Gerstner wave with the amplitude of the cosine wave is derived again. The definite integral of the wave number spectrum is discretized. Further, another expression of the IFFT Gerstner wave is gotten. The Fourier coefficient of the expression contains the wave number spectrum and the area of the discrete integral domain. The method makes the shape of the generated wave stable. Comparing Tessdendorf’s method with the method of the paper, we find that the expression of A should contain the area of the discrete integral domain and the spectral constant of the wave number spectrum. If A contains only the spectral constant, the amplitude malformation may occur. By reading some well known open source codes, we find that the code authors adopted some factitious methods to suppress the malformed amplitude Obviously, the code authors have already noticed the phenomenon of the malformation, but not probed the cause. The rendering results of the codes are close to that of the method of the paper. Furthermore, the wave potential is computed using the Gerstner wave model directly, the author find it is quite close to that of the paper. The experimental results and comparisons show that the method of the paper correctly computes the wave potential and effectively solves the problem of amplitude malformation

Simulation FX: Cinema and the R&D Complex

This study looks at the ongoing development of tools and practices used to animate nonlinear physical phenomena, such as the crash of ocean waves or the movement of human hair, in the visual effect and animation industries. These tools and practices are developed in a nexus between public funding, research universities, the film industry, and various other sectors, such as aerospace and meteorology. This study investigates how technological development became integrated with film production, and in turn how epistemic paradigms were shared between the film industry, scientific research institutions and other industries. At the heart of these animation tools and practices, and the networks of institutions that developed them, is a way of thinking that seeks to make use of unpredictable nonlinear complexity by shaping it toward specific applications. I observe this in the way animation and visual effect studios seek the realistic appearance of nonlinear natural movement through simulation, while also implementing technologies and practices to direct the look of these simulations. I also observe this in a variety of related examples, from the way the concept of research and development unites science and application, to the way management science promotes hands off approaches that preserve the unpredictable nature of creative work. My methods consist of charting the circulation of ideas, technologies, moving images and people through contact zones such as the computer science special interest group ACM SIGGRAPH, using archival research of trade communications, scholarly publications and conference proceedings, as well as interviews with industry workers

Visual Identity, Stylization and Game Design. Case: Harald Hirmuinen

Given work covers the process of research, design and implementation of visual artwork and game design for a series of computer entertainment programs (arcade games) based on existing registered product—Hägär the Horrible (Finnish Harald Hirmuinen) comic series. The project's main goal was to create a consistent digital entertainment product which fits the original comic theme. Among the aims set within the framework of this educational project the following ones can be highlighted: acquiring of real-world experience, developing teamwork and negotiation skills, time and budget planning. Present work relied heavily on studying of the existing artwork, characters, storyline as well as the research of given time period and environment. The final product has been developed within Unity 3D game engine. The outcomes of the project may be evaluated as the successful ones not only in terms of the final product quality but also judging from the perspective of gained skills and experience

A Collection of Computer Simulation Enhanced Units for Earth Science

Inquiry learning has become the big thing in science education. Yet many concepts across the sciences pose challenges that have traditionally made them difficult or even impossible for this kind of learning. This project explored the implementation of computer simulations into the science classroom as a way to overcome many of the traditional challenges. While research has revealed both benefits and issues associated with their use, when implemented properly computer simulations were found to have the potential to help students develop deeper conceptual understandings of scientific concepts. Along with exploring the benefits and issues related to computer simulations, a review of the literature also revealed a collection of research-based strategies for their effective implementation. These strategies include scaffolding and real world connections among others. This research was then used to design a collection of five Earth Science units. Each unit is technologically enhanced through the incorporation of a PhET simulation by the University of Colorado and provides students with an opportunity to engage in simulation-based inquiry

Animating Film Theory

Animating Film Theory provides an enriched understanding of the relationship between two of the most unwieldy and unstable organizing concepts in cinema and media studies: animation and film theory. For the most part, animation has been excluded from the purview of film theory. The contributors to this collection consider the reasons for this marginalization while also bringing attention to key historical contributions across a wide range of animation practices, geographic and linguistic terrains, and historical periods. They delve deep into questions of how animation might best be understood, as well as how it relates to concepts such as the still, the moving image, the frame, animism, and utopia. The contributors take on the kinds of theoretical questions that have remained underexplored because, as Karen Beckman argues, scholars of cinema and media studies have allowed themselves to be constrained by too narrow a sense of what cinema is. This collection reanimates and expands film studies by taking the concept of animation seriously. Contributors. Karen Beckman, Suzanne Buchan, Scott Bukatman, Alan Cholodenko, Yuriko Furuhata, Alexander R. Galloway, Oliver Gaycken, Bishnupriya Ghosh, Tom Gunning, Andrew R. Johnston, Hervé Joubert-Laurencin, Gertrud Koch, Thomas LaMarre, Christopher P. Lehman, Esther Leslie, John MacKay, Mihaela Mihailova, Marc Steinberg, Tess Takahash

River guardian Yu : an exploration of an environmental game concept design : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Images are re-used in accordance with the "fair use" principle.Environmental digital games with interactive narrative methods can be a useful tool for conveying environmental messages to increase people’s awareness. This is especially true for young audiences who readily accept new media in their daily life. This project was prompted by concern about the impact of water pollution on rare and endangered aquatic animals along the Yangtze River and internationally, and the role of humans in perpetuating the problem. I explore how folklore stories can be applied in a modern environmental game concept to transmit environmental messages so as to promote the traditional values of harmony between human and nature to audiences. This research project adapts the Chinese folklore stories of Great Yu and the Classic of Mountains and Seas and integrates them through interactive storytelling in an environmental game concept about water pollution damage to underwater creatures. Within the paradigm of concept design, the project creates a modern environmental game case that explores these folklore stories together with the possibility of using environmental games for educational purposes. My game concept aims to promote and enhance young people's environmental education and raise their concerns about these important issues

Understanding deep convective organization: simple stochastic approaches and new metrics to bridge the gaps

Deep convective clouds can be observed in a variety of organizational states, from spatially random distributions to more coherent structures spanning a wide range of spatial scales. One puzzling mode of organization found in idealized numerical studies is the so called convective self-aggregation, in which the clouds spontaneously transition from a random distribution in space to a regime where they are clustered. This phenomenon can have important implications for tropical climate and its sensitivity, but the problems are that the models do not agree on their representation of it and there is also a lack of consensus on how to best quantify organization in both modeling and observational studies. To shed light on the discrepancies among models, we introduced a much simpler stochastic reaction-diffusion model of tropical convection, which, in spite of its minimal complexity, is still adequate to reproduce the behavior of full-physics systems and captures the transition to aggregation at parameter values that are a reasonable approximation of the present-day tropical atmosphere. The simplicity of the model allowed us to derive a dimensionless parameter, referred to as the aggregation number, whose value robustly indicates whether a given experimental configuration would undergo aggregation or not at all. The aggregation number incorporates the model key parameters, namely, a tropospheric radiative overturning timescale, the efficiency of horizontal moisture transport and the strength of the convection-vapor feedback, as well as the domain size and the horizontal resolution, in an attempt to explain these latter sensitivities detected in modeling studies. We suggest that this quantity can help understand the differences between full-physics models of the atmosphere. Regarding the quantification of the organization level of cloud field scenes, to provide a better assessment a new index has been developed that solves many of the drawbacks and weaknesses of existing methodologies. The index categorizes the organization in an absolute sense, is robust to the details of the calculation algorithm and is linear in spatial scale for most used cases, allowing a quantification of the organization level over and also beyond the beta-mesoscale. These advantages make it suitable for use in model intercomparison projects and in the analysis of a wide range of observation products.Deep convective clouds can be observed in a variety of organizational states, from spatially random distributions to more coherent structures spanning a wide range of spatial scales. One puzzling mode of organization found in idealized numerical studies is the so called convective self-aggregation, in which the clouds spontaneously transition from a random distribution in space to a regime where they are clustered. This phenomenon can have important implications for tropical climate and its sensitivity, but the problems are that the models do not agree on their representation of it and there is also a lack of consensus on how to best quantify organization in both modeling and observational studies. To shed light on the discrepancies among models, we introduced a much simpler stochastic reaction-diffusion model of tropical convection, which, in spite of its minimal complexity, is still adequate to reproduce the behavior of full-physics systems and captures the transition to aggregation at parameter values that are a reasonable approximation of the present-day tropical atmosphere. The simplicity of the model allowed us to derive a dimensionless parameter, referred to as the aggregation number, whose value robustly indicates whether a given experimental configuration would undergo aggregation or not at all. The aggregation number incorporates the model key parameters, namely, a tropospheric radiative overturning timescale, the efficiency of horizontal moisture transport and the strength of the convection-vapor feedback, as well as the domain size and the horizontal resolution, in an attempt to explain these latter sensitivities detected in modeling studies. We suggest that this quantity can help understand the differences between full-physics models of the atmosphere. Regarding the quantification of the organization level of cloud field scenes, to provide a better assessment a new index has been developed that solves many of the drawbacks and weaknesses of existing methodologies. The index categorizes the organization in an absolute sense, is robust to the details of the calculation algorithm and is linear in spatial scale for most used cases, allowing a quantification of the organization level over and also beyond the beta-mesoscale. These advantages make it suitable for use in model intercomparison projects and in the analysis of a wide range of observation products