The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) program will participate in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in December with a variety of sessions, posters and information sharing opportunities throughout the show.
The AGU Fall Meeting is the largest worldwide conference in the geophysical sciences, attracting more than 20,000 Earth and space scientists, educators, students and policy makers. AGU will take place from Dec. 3-7 in San Francisco. For more information visit the AGU Fall Meeting 2012 Website.
In addition to scheduled scientific sessions, the OOI Team will hold an informal meeting to provide interested attendees an update of recent OOI activities followed by a deployment schedule Q&A session. The informal meeting will be offered from 6:00 PM -7:00 PM on Wednesday, Dec. 5, in the Orpheum Room at the Serrano Hotel.
“The annual AGU meeting provides us the opportunity to share our progress on the OOI with our colleagues and provide information about the updated deployment schedule for 2013 and 2014,” said Tim Cowles, Vice President & Director of Ocean Observing Programs at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. “We encourage attendees to bring their questions to the OOI booth and look forward to productive discussions throughout the week with prospective users.”
The OOI will be one fully integrated system collecting data on coastal, regional and global scales. Greater knowledge of the ocean’s interrelated systems is vital for increased understanding of their effects on biodiversity, ocean and coastal ecosystems, ecosystem health and climate change. OOI will put real time ocean observing data in the hands of a vast user community of oceanographers, scientists and researchers, educators and the public.
Several talks and posters by the OOI at the 2012 AGU meeting discuss the logistics of delivering data to the user community. Broadly, posters and talks will focus on the OOI cyberinfrastructure delivering data to users on the internet, software developed by the OOI Education and Public Engagement (EPE) to bring these data into the classroom, and strategies for shipboard education from the OOI Regional Scale Nodes (RSN).
The OOI EPE team, led by Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and the OOI Cyberinfrastructure (CI) team, led by University of California, San Diego will be presenting information on their recent advances in utilizing technology and near-real time data for learning purposes.
The OOI EPE team is building a variety of software interfaces and web-based tools that ultimately will allow educators to bring the ocean into their learning environments. Rutgers, in leading the development of educational capabilities for the OOI, will leverage the OOI cyberinfrastructure capabilities by constructing a series of software and web-based social networking tools to engage a wide range of users including faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, informal science educators and the general public. The software will be designed to provide science educators with a suite of tools allowing them to enhance their graduate and undergraduate education activities and engage the general public using ocean observation data from the OOI. Anyone with an Internet connection will have access to OOI data.
Additionally, a poster will be presented by the CI team, as an introduction to the OOI cyberinfrastructure as well as technical, social, and strategic perspectives on the challenges and solutions in geoinformatics data systems. The CI is a free and open tool that incorporates an innovative and adaptable approach allowing for 24/7 connectivity and bringing ocean observing data to a user any time, any place, on any computer or mobile device. The goals of the CI are to provide: near-real time data delivery, quality control of collected data, calibrated and drift-free sensors, comprehensive metadata, accurate timing across the network, continuous data without gaps and low lifecycle costs.
“It’s a great opportunity to talk with the AGU community, which witnessed and contributed to much of the history of the OOI,” says John Orcutt, Principal Investigator of the CI component of OOI. “The ideas of electronic publishing and the use of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) contributed substantially to the open data model of the OOI as well as to the need for duplex connections with platforms (e.g. gliders) and individual sensors for control and command.”
Presentations also will be offered by the University of Washington’s Regional Scales Nodes (RSN) team on recent work at the Axial Seamount site off the coast of Washington. Axial Seamount, the most robust volcanic system on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, is a future site of the cabled observatory component of the OOI program. Installation of 540 miles of undersea fiber optic cable that will link scientists and others on land to data streaming from the OOI was completed in September 2011. Primary Nodes were installed onto these cables over summer 2012.
“The OOI cabled observatory team achieved a major milestone in summer 2012 when the system’s seven primary nodes were installed into the backbone cables that reach Hydrate Ridge and Axial Seamount, which is 300 miles off the coast of Oregon,” said John Delaney, Director and Principal Investigator of the RSN component of OOI. “Next summer we begin installing the secondary infrastructure and are looking forward to going live from the deep sea in 2014.”
Delaney and the UW team led the Visions ’11 expedition to survey and assess the ongoing installation of the high-power and high bandwidth regional cabled network. During the cruise the team also streamed live, high-resolution underwater video from the two primary study sites on the cabled network: the Hydrate Ridge gas-hydrate system and the underwater volcano Axial Seamount. That video, taken in support of instrument site verification and mapping surveys, is available on the University of Washington VISIONS ’11 Expedition Website.
Information listed below for more details on the OOI presence at AGU:
TITLE: OOI’S CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE: AN OPENING
POSTER: #1503
SESSION: IN13B. Open Data for Open Science in Geoinformatics
DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Mon., Dec. 3; 1:40-6:00 PM; Hall A-C (Moscone South)
AUTHORS: John Graybeal1, T. Ampe1, M. Arrott1, A. Chave3, R. Cressey1, S. Jul4, T. McPhail1, M. Meisinger1, J. Orcutt1, C. Peach1, O. Schofield2, K. Stocks1, J. Thomas1, F. Vernon1
INSTITUTIONS:
1. University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States.
2. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, United States.
3. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, United States.
4. Amaryllis Consulting, LLC, Los Altos, CA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a long-term, NSF-funded program to provide 25-30 years of sustained ocean measurements to study climate variability, ocean circulation and ecosystem dynamics, air-sea exchange, seafloor processes, and plate-scale geodynamics. The OOI will enable powerful new scientific approaches for exploring the complexities of Earth-ocean-atmosphere interactions, thereby accelerating progress toward the goal of understanding, predicting, and managing our ocean environment. The OOI can foster new discoveries that, in turn, move research in unforeseen directions.
The OOI Cyberinfrastructure will connect and coordinate the operations of OOI marine components and data processes, to meet the objectives of the oceanographic research and education communities. The CI will let all users easily interact with deployed resources, access collected data, and apply those data to their specific research and educational needs. The CI is a free and open product that adopts innovative and flexible strategies to bring the oceans to users, any time, any place, on any suitable device.
The OOI CI is dedicated to “using the latest computing technologies to solve the interoperability problem among vast amounts of heterogeneous geospatial data from various sources.” OOI CI’s charge is to be transformative, and its technologies and goals are just that (see URL). The Cyberinfrastructure integrates state-of-the-art and best-practice approaches to provide fully interoperable access to the widest possible collection of geospatial data. From the system-of-systems model of the planned observatories and the ingestion of data, models, and services; to the configurable, automated workflows producing real-time products, data curation and quality management strategies are supported to the fullest possible extent.
How do we build a system to efficiently support 750 core instruments across numerous platform types, add as-yet unknown instruments during the operations phase, and support any number of processes and external data in the system throughout its 25+ years of operation? What key strategies must be adopted, architectural approaches applied, and technologies integrated to provide complete discovery, access, and use of the system and its data? What defines the critical characteristics expected of the core system, the complete system, and the transformative system? And how can this system be leveraged by multiple science users, programs, and organizations beyond its initial target functionality?
We will present the CI team’s best responses to these questions. The project is completing Release 2, two-thirds of the way to a fully public release, and halfway to the final system. The engagement of OOI marine operations and marine science teams prepares us to support marine operations, and the software will be applied to “real operations” very soon. Most of the fundamental marine and operational scenarios are in place at a basic level, and the capabilities have been laid out for a full suite of mature operations and science activities.
From these beginnings, we offer technical, social, and strategic perspectives on the challenges and solutions in geoinformatics data systems, and ask “Where to from here?”
Funding for OOI is provided by the National Science Foundation through a Cooperative Agreement with the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, which in turn funds the CI project.
http://ci.oceanobservatories.org/agu2012
SESSION TITLE: ED21B. OCEAN SCIENCE ONLINE: ENGAGING MULTIPLE AUDIENCES I
SESSION TYPE: Poster
DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Tues., Dec. 4,8:00 AM – 12:20 PM; Hall A-C (Moscone South)
CONVENERS: Giora Proskurowski and Allison Fundis
INSTITUTION: University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
OOI POSTERS WITHIN THIS SESSION
TITLE: INTERACTIVE LEARNING MODULES: ENABLING NEAR REAL-TIME OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA USE IN UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
POSTER: #0715
AUTHORS: Deborah Kilb1, A. Fundis2, C. Risien3
INSTITUTIONS:
1. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States.
2. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
3. Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States.
ABSTRACT:
The focus of the Education and Public Engagement (EPE) component of the NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) is to provide a new layer of cyber-interactivity for undergraduate educators to bring near real-time data from the global ocean into learning environments. To accomplish this, we are designing six online services including: 1) visualization tools, 2) a lesson builder, 3) a concept map builder, 4) educational web services (middleware), 5) collaboration tools and 6) an educational resource database. Here, we report on our Fall 2012 release that includes the first four of these services:
1) Interactive visualization tools allow users to interactively select data of interest, display the data in various views (e.g., maps, time-series and scatter plots) and obtain statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation and a regression line fit to select data. Specific visualization tools include a tool to compare different months of data, a time series explorer tool to investigate the temporal evolution of select data parameters (e.g., sea water temperature or salinity), a glider profile tool that displays ocean glider tracks and associated transects, and a data comparison tool that allows users to view the data either in scatter plot view comparing one parameter with another, or in time series view.
2) Our interactive lesson builder tool allows users to develop a library of online lesson units, which are collaboratively editable and sharable and provides starter templates designed from learning theory knowledge.
3) Our interactive concept map tool allows the user to build and use concept maps, a graphical interface to map the connection between concepts and ideas. This tool also provides semantic-based recommendations, and allows for embedding of associated resources such as movies, images and blogs.
4) Education web services (middleware) will provide an educational resource database API.
TITLE: MAXIMIZING SHIP-TO-SHORE CONNECTIONS VIA TELEPRESENCE TECHNOLOGIES
POSTER: #0717
AUTHORS: Allison Fundis; D. Kelley; G. Proskurowski; J. Delaney
INSTITUTION: School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
Live connections to offshore oceanographic research via telepresence technologies enable onshore scientists, students, and the public to observe and participate in active research as it is happening. As part of the ongoing construction effort of the NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative’s cabled network, the VISIONS’12 expedition included a wide breadth of activities to allow the public, students, and scientists to interact with a sea-going expedition. Here we describe our successes and lessons learned in engaging these onshore audiences through the various outreach efforts employed during the expedition including: 1) live high-resolution video and audio streams from the seafloor and ship; 2) live connections to science centers, aquaria, movie theaters, and undergraduate classrooms; 3) social media interactions; and 4) an onboard immersion experience for undergraduate and graduate students.
TITLE: POST-ERUPTIVE TIME SERIES OF HYDROTHERMAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE WATER COLUMN ABOVE AXIAL SEAMOUNT
DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Tues., Dec. 4,11:50 AM – 12:05 PM; Room 3024 (Moscone West)
SESSION NAME: OS22A. InterRidge Session on: Deep Subseafloor Biosphere II
SESSION TYPE: Presentation
AUTHORS: Giora Proskurowski1; D. Kelley1; J. Delaney1; S. Walker2; J. Huber3; M. Lilley1; R. Morris1; D. Butterfield2; J. Lupton2
INSTITUTIONS:
1. School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
2. NOAA PMEL, Seattle, WA, United States.
3. Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
April 5th, 2011 Axial Seamount erupted along the south rift zone from the east wall of the caldera down 9km of the southern flank. In the following 18 months four expeditions, NOAA NeMO cruises in July 2011 and Aug 2012, and OOI-RSN cruises in August 2011 and September 2012, conducted water column sampling campaigns at Axial to assess the magnitude and composition of the hydrothermal plumes associated with the known vent fields and newly erupted lavas. The deep water column signal was characterized by profile measurements of temperature, beam attenuation, light backscatter, and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP); this data was augmented by discrete water sample measurements of H2, CH4, 3He/4He, microbial abundance (DAPI counts), bacterial counts, and bacterial sequencing of select samples. At three and four months after the eruption no megaplumes were detected, as the plumes were 30-100 meters thick with typical rise heights of 75-150m. However, a water column signal derived from snowblower vents driven by post-eruption enhanced hydrothermal circulation was observed, as were elevated methane concentrations 5-20 meters off bottom, presumably associated with widespread diffuse flow.
SESSION TITLE: ED23D. OCEAN SCIENCE ONLINE: ENGAGING MULTIPLE AUDIENCES II
SESSION TYPE: Presentation
DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Tues., Dec. 4,1:40 PM – 3:40 PM; Room 301 (Moscone South)
CONVENERS: Allison Fundis and Giora Proskurowski
INSTITUTION: University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
PRESENTATIONS WITHIN THIS SESSION
TITLE: VISIONS AT-SEA TELEPRESENCE (VAST): EDUCATING IN REAL TIME, SEAFLOOR TO SHORE
TIME: 2:55 PM – 3:10 PM
AUTHORS: Leslie Sautter1; A. Fundis2; D. Kelley2; J. Delaney2; E. McNichol2; M. Stoermer1; S. Glenn3
INSTITUTIONS:
1. Dept of Geo & Enviro Geo Sci, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, United States.
2. School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
3. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, United States.
Abstract:
The University of Washington (UW) has recently led the VISIONS 2011 and 2012 cruises aboard the R/V Thompson to Axial Seamount on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, part of the NSF Ocean Observatory Initiative. During each cruise the VISIONS At-Sea Telepresence, or VAST Program was piloted, consisting of several live 30-60 minute shipboard broadcasts highlighted by streaming live HD video from the ROV ROPOS documenting investigations of the seamount’s hydrothermal vents and recent lava flows. Broadcasts also included short lectures and pre-taped documentaries and seafloor video narrated live by shipboard scientists and students. Pilot audiences at UW, the College of Charleston and Rutgers University included undergraduate marine geology, oceanography and education students, high school students, graduate students and teachers. Multiple public audiences were also recipients of VAST programming, and all broadcasts were viewable in standard definition to any web users. Question/answer interactivity via Twitter and Skype were promoted throughout the broadcasts. To supplement live broadcasts with additional content, a VAST Program website was created on UW’s Interactive Oceans site, providing a wealth of hyperlinked online resources covering six program themes, as well as a college-level online laboratory exercise, “Characterizing Lava Flow Morphologies.” The online resources are primarily suited to inform a high school and older audience, and thus serves to reach a vast audience. The VAST Program was very successful at engaging and educating both formal and informal audiences. Preliminary VAST results documented by user surveys will be presented.
TITLE: PANEL DISCUSSION: STRATEGIES FOR SHARING SHIPBOARD (OR OTHER REMOTE) SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCES ACROSS A RANGE OF BUDGETS
TIME:3:25 PM – 3:40 PM
AUTHORS: Giora Proskurowski and Allison Fundis
INSTITUTION: School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
There exists a wide range of possibilities to bring remote scientific experiences to a global audience via the web. However, with each additional byte of information, there are costs and complications associated with the increased richness of presentation. Here we discuss current hardware, software, personnel, communication, transmission, and dissemination strategies to satisfy a range of goals and budgets. In addition, we look to the future to guess at how these efforts may evolve. This presentation will serve as a summary of the cost and complexity of current oceanographic public engagement efforts and hopefully act as a springboard for discussion. The intent is to use the bulk of the allotted time for a panel moderated discussion drawing on the expertise assembled at this session.
SESSION TITLE: OS51F. OCEAN OBSERVING SYSTEMS: CHALLENGES AND SUCCESSES II
SESSION TYPE: Presentation
DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Fri., Dec. 7,8:00 AM – 10:00 AM; 3011 (Moscone West)
CONVENERS: Stephanie Ingle1, Susan Banahan2, and Kate Moran3
Institutions:
- Lighthouse R&D Enterprises, Houston, TX, United States
- Consortium for Ocean Leadership, Washington, DC, United States
- University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
OOI PRESENTATIONS WITHIN THIS SESSION
TITLE: NSF OCEAN OBSERVATORIES INITIATIVE”S CONTRIBUTION TO A FULLY REGIONAL, INTERACTIVE, HIGH-BANDWIDTH, SENSING-ROBOT SYSTEM OFF THE WASHINGTON-OREGON-BRITISH COLUMBIA COASTLINE
TIME: 8:40 AM – 8:55 AM
AUTHORS: John Delaney; P. Barletto; D. Kelley; G. Harkins; M. Harrington; C. Durand; M. Mulvihill; N. Penrose; C. McGuire; K. Daly; D. Luther; O. Kawka; G. Proskurowski; A. Fundis
INSTITUTION: University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
A transformative component of the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative is the electro-optically networked sensor-robotic system in the NE Pacific, known within the program as the Regional Scale Nodes and more broadly as NEPTUNE-US. This system, which was conceived with NSF funding in 1998, is similar in function to the NEPTUNE Canada system (they were initially developed together) and will be the first U.S. regional cabled ocean observatory. It is designed to facilitate next-generation science and education by providing a wide spectrum of scientific communities with unprecedented power and bandwidth throughout a full range of marine environments.
At nearly three years into the construction phase, led by the University of Washington under the guidance of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in DC, the cabled network project has achieved all key scheduled milestones. A major, early contract to L-3 MariPro, let in November 2009, resulted in successful deployment in summer 2011 of 868 km of primary cable on the seafloor and successful cable landings and connections to the shore station in Pacific City, Oregon. Seven primary nodes distributed across critical elements of the Juan de Fuca Tectonic Plate were installed in July and August 2012. There are two primary nodes at the Hydrate Ridge study site, two at the Axial Seamount site, and two associated with sites on the Oregon coastal margin that are part of the cabled portion of the Endurance Array-Newport Line, overseen by OOI partner Oregon State University. Each primary node is capable of delivering 10 Gb bandwidth and 10 kW electrical power locally. Also in August 2012, a section of primary cable that, upon inspection, was discovered to have been laid over a newly discovered and active hydrothermal vent field on the flank of Axial Seamount, is being re-laid along a less hazardous route.
The regional cabled system, which is designed to operate for 25 years, includes the potential for future expansion. Work in August 2012 included jointing a 10-km-long primary cable with a stub end into the node located in the middle of the Juan de Fuca Plate. This primary node has minimal internal electronics for now, but could be made fully operational with fairly minimal effort and cost at a later date by installing a full scientific interface assembly in the existing node frame. The 10-km stub-end cable will enable expansion using a cable splice, thereby avoiding the need for recovering the node itself.
Scheduled for installation in summer 2013-14 is a major portion of the Secondary Infrastructure: 60 km of extension cables, five low-voltage nodes, 17 junction boxes, and four full-ocean water-column moorings with shallow- and deep-water profilers. Of the moorings, one will be installed at 3,000 m water depth at the Axial Seamount study site, one at 3,000 meters at base of the continental slope near Hydrate Ridge, and two hybrid units on the Endurance Array’s Newport Line.
In concert with NEPTUNE Canada, this OOI RSN cabled system creates a suite of unique opportunities for sustained, high-resolution, high-bandwidth, regional scientific investigations to be conducted in real-time throughout entire volumes of the NE Pacific Ocean with emphasis on the complexity of real ecosystems over the coming decades.
TITLE: REMOTE, REAL-TIME INVESTIGATIONS OF EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS USING HIGH POWER AND BANDWIDTH CABLED OBSERVATORIES: THE OOI REGIONAL SCALE NODES
TIME:8:55 AM – 9:10 AM
AUTHORS: Deborah Kelley and John Delaney
INSTITUTION: University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
Methane hydrate deposits and hydrothermal vents are two of the most extreme environments on Earth. Seismic events and flow of gases from the seafloor support and modulate novel microbial communities within these systems. Although studied intensely for several decades, significant questions remain about the flux of heat, volatiles and microbial material from the subsurface to the hydrosphere in these dynamic environments. Quantification of microbial communities, their structure and abundances, and metabolic activities is in an infant state. To better understand these systems, the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatory Initiative has installed high power (8 kW), high bandwidth (10 Gb/s) nodes on the seafloor that provide access to active methane seeps at Southern Hydrate Ridge, and at the most magmatically robust volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge – Axial Seamount. The real-time interactive capabilities of the cabled observatory are critical to studying gas-hydrate systems because many of the key processes occur over short time scales. Events such as bubble plume formation, the creation of collapse zones, and increased seepage in response to earthquakes require adaptive response and sampling capabilities. To meet these challenges a suite of instruments will be connected to the cable in 2013. These sensors include full resolution sampling by upward-looking sonars, fluid and gas chemical characterization by mass spectrometers and osmo samplers, long-term duration collection of seep imagery from cameras, and in situ manipulation of chemical sensors coupled with flow meters. In concert, this instrument suite will provide quantification of transient and more stable chemical fluxes. Similarly, at Axial Seamount the high bandwidth and high power fiber optic cables will be used to communicate with and power a diverse array of sensors at the summit of the volcano. Real-time high definition video will provide unprecedented views of macrofaunal and microbial communities at the vents and chemical sensors and thermistor arrays will provide information on the environmental conditions in which the biological communities thrive. The instrumentation will also yield information on the impact of flow perturbations associated with eruptive and seismic events on biological communities. Other sensors to be installed include in situ mass spectrometers for fluid – volatile chemistry, broadband and short-period seismometers to monitor earthquake and magma migration activity, temperature and chemical probes in diffuse and black smoker sites, fluid and DNA samplers, and pressure-tilt meters for measurement of preeruptive inflation events and post eruptive deflation. The in situ DNA samplers initially will focus on in-situ filtering and preservation of time series samples in diffuse flow sites. The instrument array at Axial, which will be fully deployed and operational in 2013, is the largest single in situ experiment in the global ocean focused on long-term measurements of underwater volcanoes with transmission of real-time data and imagery back to shore. All data will be available to the public 24/7/365 and the system as installed will be highly expandable.
TITLE: EXPERIMENTING WITH EDUCATIONAL GAMES USING THE XBOX, PC, AND IPAD
DATE/TIME/LOCATION: Fri., Dec. 7, 2:25 PM – 2:40 PM, 302 Moscone South
SESSION TYPE: Presentation
SESSION TITLE: ED53G. Games, Interactive Simulations, and Virtual Labs for Science Teaching and Learning II
AUTHORS: Daniel Rohrlick1, D. Kilb1, C. Peach1, E. Simms2, A. Yang1, C. Layman3, R. Deutscher4
INSTITUTIONS:
1. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States.
2. Harvard University Center for the Environment, Cambridge, MA, United States.
3. Birch Aquarium at Scripps, La Jolla, CA, United States.
4. The Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States.
ABSTRACT:
As videogames continue to grow in popularity, especially with today’s youth, it is becoming clear that gaming can be a potent learning tool. But what is the best way to engage a player in learning from a videogame? Based on our five years of developing and testing our own educational games, we experimented with various forms of gaming techniques and player interaction. Our first game, “Deep-sea Extreme Environment Pilot (DEEP)”, is an Xbox 360 game where players learn about deep-sea environments while controlling a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). DEEP is a “traditional” videogame where players interact with a controller and a TV screen. The second game we developed for the PC is called the “Quake Catcher Network (QCN)” game. With the gameplay focused on earth sciences, players must quickly deploy seismic sensors to record aftershocks from a large earthquake. Instead of using a game controller to play the QCN game, we instead incorporate the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor for the game input. Finally, the “Glider Game” is our third and most recent game designed for use on the mobile device platform such as iPods and iPads. In this game players control ocean gliders and must complete missions while battling ocean currents, power consumption, and other unanticipated problems. Here, the gameplay is aimed toward the casual gamer using touch-screen based controls in the hope that players can easily pick up and play this game with little gaming experience.
After testing our games numerous times in museums, informal science learning centers, and classrooms we have been able to track qualitatively which educational gaming techniques work and which do not. We have discovered how simple concepts such as audio queues and voice-overs play a powerful role in obtaining and holding a player’s attention. We have also found having the learning goals built into the gameplay is often more effective than directly quizzing the player’s knowledge. By adding surprises to the gameplay, a game does a better job keeping the player’s attention. Also, presenting non-traditional physical interactions with the game through motion controls or touch-screens help spur the player’s interest. The duration of the game is another important factor. Depending on how much interactivity there is available to the player, the game’s duration can either lead to overwhelming frustration if too short, or repetitive boredom if the game is too long. Overall, we find one of the most important parts of the learning gaming experience is making sure players are having fun while learning.
After creating our games on various formats and software suites, we are working toward understanding the efficacy of our gaming approaches in not only holding players interest, but also in achieving specific learning goals related to the science behind the gameplay. We hope to encourage educators to view educational games as a useful addition to the range of approaches they use to engage students in science. Perhaps this can even motivate some educators to create their own games.
Click here for more information on the Education and Public Engagement
Click here for more information on the Cyberinfrastructure
Click here for more information on the Regional Scale Nodes
Click here for more information on the Coastal and Global Nodes