Interactive modeling and visualization in undergraduate survey courses

Over the past decade, the paradigm for undergraduate education has shifted in focus from teacher-centered to student-centered learning. An attendant challenge to this paradigm shift is to develop these constructivist environments so that the student not only comprehends the what and where and when of a topic, but is compelled to ask how and why. One possible solution is to integrate an interactive modeling and visualization into the undergraduate learning structure. Such an element engages not only comprehensive thought as before, but also the analytical thought all scientists use every day.

There exist methods to develop such modeling and visualization environments through the Internet. For instance, the Java programming language from Sun Microsystems provides one method of including the non-trivial, interactive content necessary to engage the student. Java can be used in powerful ways in an endless variety of educational materials.

However, it is important to remember that the tools themselves do not improve learning. Interactive tools are only a complement to the authentic activity structures that drive the inquiry. For example, in a laboratory setting where the sea-breeze phenomenon is being discussed, students would have the opportunity interact with a sea-breeze model. With this model, they can explore the full sea-breeze circulation -- with the ability to adjust the model settings (e.g., different land-sea heating rates, Coriolis parameter, strength of the background on/off-shore flow) and observe the responses -- enabling the student to understand how the resulting sea-breeze structure evolves and why such responses occurred.

Initial implementation of these interactive models will be integrated within the existing Weather World 2010 framework (http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/) and used in a laboratory course setting. The paper will describe not only the interactive modeling tools, but also how they are being used in introductory survey courses to improve undergraduate education.