Students participating in the CoVis Project study atmospheric sciences through project-based activities. They may investigate the reasons for the exceptionally cool summer of 1993, for example, or Lake Michigan's effect on Chicago-area storms.
"Among our primary research goals in the CoVis Project," says Barry Fishman, graduate student in NWU's School of Education and Social Policy, "is to determine the level of technology required to support cross-school and cross-community collaboration, and to use that data to help shape educational and telecommunications policy at the state and federal level."
Mythili Sridhar, graduate research assistant in NCSA's Education Group, and Steve Hall, graduate student in UIUC's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, developed hypercard multimedia instruction modules on topics such as pressure, forces and winds, and weather maps for CoVis. The modules incorporate colorful diagrams, video clips, text, and audio narration in what amounts to an interactive, online textbook. For example, one video demonstrates the Coriolis force by showing the curved path a ball takes when rolled by children on a whirling merry-go-round. (The Coriolis force, introduced by French Physicist Gaspard de Coriolis in 1835, is a fictional force used to simplify calculations about rotating systems: the movement of air, water, and projectiles over the Earth's rotating surface.)
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