Ideation in a virtual reality learning environment: a pilot project from Iceland in innovation education

Innovation Education (IE) is a new subject area in Icelandic schools. The aim is to train students to identify needs and problems in their environment and to find solutions: a process of ideation. This activity has been classroom based but now a specific Virtual Reality Learning Environment technology (VRLE) has been created to support ideation. This technology supports online communications between students and teacher and enables them to develop drawings and descriptions of the solutions. The VRLE is Internet connected and the students work online with their ideas in real time. As this learning environment is new it is important to evaluate and explore its use and value in supporting ideation in the context of IE. The primary author has run a series of pilot studies to identify the pedagogical issues of using the new VRLE to support ideation within IE. In this paper, he discusses the background of Innovation Education in Icelandic Education and reports the pilot studies. The main aim of the pilot studies was to explore the ways in which ideation was developed in students when using IE materials within the VRLE. The researcher used the following research questions: a. What are the pedagogical issues of using the VRLE for ideation in Innovation Education? b. Which issues influence the ideation process in the VRLE in Innovation Education? c. How can the teacher effectively manage such issues? These questions were explored using a range of specific techniques in an action research model. Data was gathered from three, triangulated, pilot studies. This was analysed and used to prepare a new set of research questions and a more developed exploration using a subsequent series of case studies

A discussion of constructivist learning in relation to the development of ideation using a Virtual Reality Learning Environment for Innovation Education in Iceland

Innovation Education (IE) is a new subject area in Icelandic schools. The aim of the subject is to train students to identify needs and problems in their environment and to develop solutions: a process of ideation. This activity has been classroom based but now a Virtual Reality Learning Environment technology (VRLE) has been designed to support ideation. This technology supports online communications between students and teacher and enables them to develop drawings and descriptions of their solutions. The VRLE is network based and the students work online in the school with their ideas in real time. As this learning environment is new it is important to explore and evaluate its use and value. This paper describes the basic IE pedagogical model and the subsequent development of the VRLE. These are discussed in relation to constructivist learning theories. The paper also contains contemplation about future research to develop the pedagogical understanding for using VRLE to support the development of ideation skills inside of the innovation process

The development of Innovation Education in Iceland: a pathway to modern pedagogy and potential value in the UK

This paper will discuss how Innovation Education (IE) has developed in the Icelandic school system; its character, pedagogy, ideology, ethical dimensions, and practical applications. In addition it will describe Iceland’s cooperation with other European countries in Innovation Education, as a new Minerva project, under the name InnoEd. The paper then considers IE as a potential tool for use in the UK National Curriculum

Satellite geological and geophysical remote sensing of Iceland: Preliminary results from analysis of MSS imagery

A binational, multidisciplinary research effort in Iceland is directed at an analysis of MSS imagery from ERTS-1 to study a variety of geologic, hydrologic, oceanographic, and agricultural phenomena. A preliminary evaluation of available MSS imagery of Iceland has yielded several significant results - some of which may have direct importance to the Icelandic economy. Initial findings can be summarized as follows: (1) recent lava flows can be delineated from older flows at Askja and Hekla; (2) MSS imagery from ERTS-1 and VHRR visible and infrared imagery from NOAA-2 recorded the vocanic eruption on Heimaey, Vestmann Islands; (3) coastline changes, particularly changes in the position of bars and beaches along the south coast are mappable; and (4) areas covered with new and residual snow can be mapped, and the appearance of newly fallen snow on ERTS-1, MSS band 7 appears dark where it is melting. ERTS-1 imagery provides a means of updating various types of maps of Iceland and will permit the compilation of special maps specifically aimed at those dynamic environmental phenomena which impact on the Icelandic economy

Satellite geological and geophysical remote sensing of Iceland: Preliminary results of geologic, hydrologic, oceanographic, and agricultural studies with ERTS-1 imagery

The author has identified the following significant results. The wide variety of geological and geophysical phenomena which can be observed in Iceland, and particularly their very direct relation to the management of the country's natural resources, has provided great impetus to the use of ERTS-1 imagery to measure and map the dynamic natural phenomena in Iceland. MSS imagery is being used to study a large variety of geological and geophysical eruptive products, geologic structure, volcanic geomorphology, hydrologic, oceanographic, and agricultural phenomena of Iceland. Some of the preliminary results from this research projects are: (1) a large number of geological and volcanic features can be studied from ERTS-1 imagery, particularly imagery acquired at low sun angle, which had not previously been recognized; (2) under optimum conditions the ERTS-1 satellite can discern geothermal areas by their snow melt pattern or warm spring discharge into frozen lakes; (3) various maps at scales of 1:1 million and 1:500,000 can be updated and made more accurate with ERTS-1 imagery; (4) the correlation of water reserves with snowcover can improve the basis for planning electrical production in the management of water resources; (5) false-color composites (MSS) permitted the mapping of four types of vegetation: forested; grasslands, reclaimed, and cultivated areas, and the seasonal change of the vegetation, all of high value to rangeland management

Competition between Diffusion and Fragmentation: An Important Evolutionary Process of Nature

We investigate systems of nature where the common physical processes diffusion and fragmentation compete. We derive a rate equation for the size distribution of fragments. The equation leads to a third order differential equation which we solve exactly in terms of Bessel functions. The stationary state is a universal Bessel distribution described by one parameter, which fits perfectly experimental data from two very different system of nature, namely, the distribution of ice crystal sizes from the Greenland ice sheet and the length distribution of alpha-helices in proteins.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, (minor changes

The radical character of the acenes: A density matrix renormalization group study

We present a detailed investigation of the acene series using high-level wavefunction theory. Our ab-initio Density Matrix Renormalization Group algorithm has enabled us to carry out Complete Active Space calculations on the acenes from napthalene to dodecacene correlating the full pi-valence space. While we find that the ground-state is a singlet for all chain-lengths, examination of several measures of radical character, including the natural orbitals, effective number of unpaired electrons, and various correlation functions, suggests that the longer acene ground-states are polyradical in nature.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, supplementary material, to be published in J. Chem. Phys. 127, 200

Winter mass balance of Drangajökull ice cap (NW Iceland) derived from satellite sub-meter stereo images

Sub-meter resolution, stereoscopic satellite images allow for the generation of accurate and high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) over glaciers and ice caps. Here, repeated stereo images of Drangajökull ice cap (NW Iceland) from Pléiades and WorldView2 (WV2) are combined with in situ estimates of snow density and densification of firn and fresh snow to provide the first estimates of the glacier-wide geodetic winter mass balance obtained from satellite imagery. Statistics in snow- and ice-free areas reveal similar vertical relative accuracy (<  0.5 m) with and without ground control points (GCPs), demonstrating the capability for measuring seasonal snow accumulation. The calculated winter (14 October 2014 to 22 May 2015) mass balance of Drangajökull was 3.33 ± 0.23 m w.e. (meter water equivalent), with ∼ 60 % of the accumulation occurring by February, which is in good agreement with nearby ground observations. On average, the repeated DEMs yield 22 % less elevation change than the length of eight winter snow cores due to (1) the time difference between in situ and satellite observations, (2) firn densification and (3) elevation changes due to ice dynamics. The contributions of these three factors were of similar magnitude. This study demonstrates that seasonal geodetic mass balance can, in many areas, be estimated from sub-meter resolution satellite stereo images.This study was funded by the University of Iceland (UI) Research Fund. Pleiades images were acquired at research price thanks to the CNES ISIS program (http://www.isis-cnes.fr). The WV2 DEM was obtained through the ArcticDEM project. This work is a contribution to the Rannis grant of excellence project, ANATILS. Collaboration and travels between IES and LEGOS were funded by the Jules Verne research fund and the TOSCA program from the French Space Agency, CNES. This study used the recent lidar mapping of the glaciers in Iceland that was funded by the Icelandic Research Fund, the Landsvirkjun research fund, the Icelandic Road Administration, the Reykjavik Energy Environmental and Energy Research Fund, the Klima-og Luftgruppen (KoL) research fund of the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Vatnajokull National Park, the organization Friends of Vatnajokull, the National Land Survey of Iceland, the Icelandic Meteorological Office and the UI research fund. The ground-based mass balance measurements on Drangajokull have been jointly funded by Orkubu Vestfjarda (Westfjord Power Company), the National Energy Authority (2004-2009) and the Icelandic Meteorological Office (2009-2015).Peer Reviewe

Modeling Historic Rangeland Management and Grazing Pressures in Landscapes of Settlement

Defining historic grazing pressures and rangeland management is vital if early landscape threshold crossing and long–term trajectories of landscape change are to be properly understood. In this paper we use a new environmental simulation model, Búmodel, to assess two contrasting historical grazing landscapes in Mývatnssveit Iceland for two key periods—the colonization period (ca. Landnám, A.D. 872–1000) and the early eighteenth century A.D. Results suggest that there were spatial and temporal variations in productivity and grazing pressure within and between historic grazing areas and indicate that land degradation was not an inevitable consequence of the livestock grazing introduced with settlement. The results also demonstrate the significance of grazing and livestock management strategies in preventing overgrazing, particularly under cooler climatic conditions. The model enables detailed consideration of historic grazing management scenarios and their associated landscape pressures

Radar-derived bed roughness characterization of Institute and Möller ice streams, West Antarctica, and comparison with Siple Coast ice streams

Subglacial bed conditions exert a significant control on ice stream behavior and evolution, and can be characterized by determining bed roughness from FFT analysis of radar-imaged basal reflectors. Here we assess bed roughness across Institute and Moller ice streams, West Antarctica, and compare our findings with bed roughness determined across the Siple Coast ice streams. We find that variations in bed roughness are spatially organized, and attribute this to the varying efficacy of subglacial erosion and deposition, with rougher (inland, slow-flowing) regions largely manifesting preglacial topography, and smoother (downstream, fast-flowing) regions evincing significant postglacial modification to the subglacial landscape. The observed similarities between bed roughness characteristics of IIS/MIS and the Siple ice streams suggest that IIS and MIS are largely underlain by wet, poorly consolidated sediments, and may therefore be vulnerable to the types of dynamical instabilities experienced by the Siple ice streams