Visible Geology recently won an Innovative Dissemination of Research Award from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library. The award honours UBC faculty, staff and students who expand the boundaries of research through the creative use of new tools and technologies. I was honoured to receive this award, and am extremely proud of the progress Visible Geology is making as an interactive visualization tool for the geosciences.
I would like to thank the geoscience community for their support and wonderful feedback that has helped to motivate and guide this project. I have posted my application below for people who would like to read more about Visible Geology and it's creation!
Visible Geology (http://app.visiblegeology.com) is an innovative web-based application designed to enhance visualization of geologic structures and processes through the use of 3D interactive block diagrams. The program allows users to conceptualize difficult, yet important geologic principles by creating and interacting with geologic block models. The visualization software is primarily used to provide supplemental help for paper-based activities such as geologic mapping. These traditional assignments often put students who do not have practice with 3D visualization and spatial manipulation at a disadvantage. Visible Geology allows students to interactively practice their visualization skills and individually engage in geologic concepts by creating their own models and terrains. My initial work on Visible Geology was completed at the University of Calgary (UCalgary) to improve an introductory geology course. I presented my work on the tools as well as the positive student feedback at an international geoscience conference and won an Outstanding Student Paper Award for geoscience education. However, limitations of the programming language used did not allow for rapid dissemination to other universities. Fueled by the positive feedback from students and professors in geology, I chose to invest a year of my own time after graduating to rework the software and make it available online inside a web-browser for free. Visible Geology has since been used across the world in introductory and structural geology classes.
I started creating visualization tools during my undergraduate studies as a way to better understand the concepts that I was learning. My early visualizations were in an engineering geology class that required us to mentally visualize complicated 3D geometries and calculate volumes and areas. After creating some simple visualizations for my own use, I shared the models with my peers and found that they too benefited from the interactive visualizations.
The resources available during my undergraduate studies lacked the interactive and visualization features that are the core focus of Visible Geology. Videos, animations, and images that show students one concept at a time are readily available; however, there was no tool to interactively create these models and animations. I believe that the process of creating a model, physical or virtual, is an engaging and meaningful process that has substantial benefits for students. Visible Geology allows students, not just professors, access to these modeling tools such that the students can become invested and engaged in creating geologic models. Teachers are able to ask students to build geologic structures from scratch rather than showing them a pre-made video or picture. Students are thus able to gain geologic intuitions through this process of discovery-based learning. Geology is a highly visual science that involves comprehending many different spatial and temporal scales. Recognizing the tremendous need for better visualization tools when teaching and learning geology was the impetus behind the creation of Visible Geology.
In the past, only geoscience professionals had access to tools that can create geologic models. These expensive professional tools have complicated interfaces and many unnecessary features for an educational context. Visible Geology is designed for the classroom and allows students to constructively play with geologic concepts in a visual environment.
Traditional assignments in geologic mapping have students connect similar geologic units over a terrain to determine how that geologic bed or fold is oriented in three dimensions. The process is done entirely on paper with a set of memorized steps to determine the orientation. These techniques are divorced from visualizing the underlying concepts, and as such, many students have difficulties with these assignments. Visible Geology does not replace these assignments but provides an interactive and immersive environment where students can grasp these concepts and ideas in three dimensions and then approach their mapping assignments with a conceptual model rather than by rote memorization.
Students in geology must also distinguish the relative age of geologic events to construct a geologic history. The interpretation is generally taught through use of simple geologic cross-sections showing crosscutting relationships; from these images students must infer the relative age of geologic events. Visible Geology offers a unique experience where the students can create their own geologic events, and directly see the effect of adding a fault or geologic fold. The students now create the history themselves rather than being handed a static image to interpret. The models students create can be shared with peers and combined with the original assignment to assess recognition of the sequence of geologic events. By creating each geologic event in the model themselves, the students can gain a deeper understanding of the processes and relative order of events. This geologic history assignment will be incorporated into a 700-student introductory geology class at UBC in January 2013.
Like throwing a stick for a dog, but for geologists. Hours of harmless fun to be had. app.visiblegeology.com/Visiblegeology... via @visiblegeology
- Ian Butler (@Dr_Butty) April 11, 2012
My initial work on Visible Geology at the UCalgary resulted in a software package that was easy to use but very difficult to install and distribute. In the following year, I reworked the program such that it could be run inside a web-browser without plugins or other installations. I chose the Internet as the method of dissemination because it lowers the barrier to entry to using the program; you only have to navigate to the website to start modeling geology. Since Visible Geology was released online in November 2011, more than 50 000 unique visitors have created their own geologic block models. Within ten days, a course at Guilford College in North Carolina had incorporated the technology into their curricula. Through site feedback, I am able to have conversations with many students and faculty about ways to further improve their learning and teaching experiences. The web-based nature of Visible Geology has not only allowed users from across the world access to high quality educational tools, this dissemination model also promotes conversations and updates that are instantly distributed to all users. The technology for providing true 3D visualization in a web-browser (through WebGL and HTML5) has only been available for the past 1.5 years; as such, this project is also an experiment in using cutting edge web technologies for interactive education.
Planning to use this tool in my focal mechanism lecture on Thursday, will help visualize 3D from stereonet: app.visiblegeology.com/stereonetApp.h...
- Jascha Polet (@CPPGeophysics) May 2, 2012
In July 2012 I had the opportunity to present my work at a geoscience education conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. At this conference I was delighted to find that professors were already using my work and there were two presentations that focused on specific case examples of using Visible Geology in university classrooms. The assignments that these professors created for Visible Geology were not specifically what I had in mind when I first designed the program; however, the inherent versatility of the program allows for many unique ideas and uses. All three of the presentations on Visible Geology generated lots of positive feedback and new ideas. An earthquake geophysicist suggested using Visible Geology to visualize, model, and interact with real earthquake data gathered from satellites. Since this conference, we have co-authored work that was presented at the Southern California Earthquake Center annual conference, and it will also be presented at another major geoscience conference (AGU) in San Francisco in December 2012.
The interactive and modular nature of Visible Geology allows it to be used in many unique ways that are not preconceived. This adaptivity is possible because Visible Geology is a modeling tool, and not another animation or video.
Students searching online for help on their geology assignments often stumble upon my application and instantly see the benefit of working with these tools. Using the Internet as the model for dissemination opposed to, for example, a textbook company or university administration, allows a level-playing field where both students and professors have equal access to the information and tools. As there are many more students than professors, this often results in the students suggesting these tools to their professors and peers rather than the typical top-down dissemination model. Visible Geology was designed to make learning geology easier, more visual, and fun for students.
A core principle in the building and design of Visible Geology was ease of use; this was met by a hassle free installation (i.e. there isn't one) and a clear distraction-free user interface. Having the program already loaded and installed just by navigating to the page encourages students and teachers to try the program instantly without downloading or fighting with installations. A clear and purposeful design in the program means that students spend more time learning geology than learning the specific technology. The dissemination model I chose for Visible Geology allows students to be enthusiastic and engaged in their learning. The model differs from traditional educational tools because it directly targets the students not teachers, textbook companies, or administration.
Visible Geology - app.visiblegeology.com/Visiblegeology... via @visiblegeology - spent 3 hrs playing with this!!! better than a PlayStation!
- Dan Parsons (@bedform) April 10, 2012
When Visible Geology loads, the program directs you to add your own geologic beds, and then allows you to interactively create your own geologic events such as tilting, folding, or faulting. The level of interactivity promotes the users to discover geologic relationships on their own. The level of ownership over your model encourages engagement in the geologic concepts being learned. One problem with a multi-purpose tool, however, is that without guidance, students (and teachers) can lose direction and not gain anything from using the tool. How I have decided to combat this lack of direction is by creating YouTube video tutorials and assignments. The video tutorials provide basic overviews on how to use the tools and have been seen by 10 000 students and teachers worldwide. I have also provided assignments to give teachers ideas on how to integrate Visible Geology into their curricula and what geologic concepts can be covered. I decided to provide these assignments in a WikiMedia format (the software behind Wikipedia); in this way, the assignments are not static and can be added to and edited by teachers, and commented on by students. Currently there are a dozen assignments that I, and a handful of other teachers, have created for Visible Geology. Integrating these alternate forms of communication, especially the videos, into Visible Geology is easy because the program is a web application itself.
A structural geology visualization tool built in HTML5 (heart pounding): visible-geology.appspot.com
- Chris Amato (@knectar) December 8, 2012
The first iteration of Visible Geology was created in a proprietary desktop programming language; this version was not viable in many classroom situations. To allow students easy access to the modeling software, I radically changed my dissemination model and redesigned the entire package to be run inside a web browser without plugins. The Internet as a vehicle for disseminating my research in geologic visualizations for education has been critical for the adoption of this software in many university courses. The software has only been around for the past year, but the program's reputation has spread via word-of-mouth, social networking sites, and blogs. This dissemination of my research was because Visible Geology is hosted online and can easily be connected to these sites and blogs. The time that I have dedicated to creating and improving Visible Geology was guided by my belief that teaching introductory geology can be more engaging and appealing to students. I have devoted over a year of full-time work and effort to bring these ideas to fruition, and strongly believe that these tools are making a difference in both conceptual understanding and the academic success of students.