Extended Abstract (608K)J7.10
Supporting Earth Science Education with Online Visualization and Analysis Information Systems
Zhong Liu, George Mason University/CEOSR, Fairfax, VA and NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD; and S. Berrick, G. Leptoukh, L. Pham, H. Rui, S. Shen, W. Teng, and T. Zhu
To encourage undergraduate students, especially those underrepresented minority students, to consider academic, operational or research careers in geosciences, it is necessary to let them participate in earth science education and applications as early/frequently as possible and expose to hands-on projects. However, existing issues in data accessing, such as, data format, data volume, etc. are major hurdles for conducting these activities. The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) has taken a major step towards meeting these challenges by developing an infrastructure that supports a Web interface that allows users to perform interactive analysis online without downloading any data. The underlying infrastructure that integrates all the components is called GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Infrastructure or "Giovanni." With a web browser and few mouse clicks, an individual can easily obtain global earth science information. At present, Giovanni includes these global products: 3-hourly, daily and monthly precipitation, MODIS monthly atmospheric products and a SeaWiFS monthly product. Basic functionalities include: area plots, time series, Hovmoller diagrams, and animation, for students to understand variations across different temporal and spatial scales and evolution (e.g. via animation). Near-real-time products, such as, precipitation, can be used for classroom projects to monitor flood conditions around the world. In this presentation, examples of using Giovanni in earth science education will be given. We encourage collaborations and feedback from educators and students to further refine Giovanni and expedite their earth science learning activities.
Supplementary URL: http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Joint Session 7, Cyberinfrastructure to support atmospheric and Oceanic Education: Examples and strategies (Joint with 21IIPS and Education)
Tuesday, 11 January 2005, 1:30 PM-5:30 PM
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