Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmed31b0621g&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #ED31B-0621
Mathematics
Logic
[0815] Education / Informal Education, [0850] Education / Geoscience Education Research
Scientific paper
The Moon Zoo citizen science project (http://www.moonzoo.org) engages individuals - primarily members of the public - in identifying geological (and sometimes technological) features on the lunar surface. Using a flash-based interface that runs in a web browser, users can mark craters, linear features, and even left-behind lunar landers on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images. These science tools are embedded in an environment designed to encourage learning and collaboration. On the main Moon Zoo site users can explore educational content, including video tutorials, articles, glossary terms, and flash interactive activities. Additionally, there is a blog and a forum to encourage collaboration and social learning, and a twitter feed for general communications. Through this suite of software Moon Zoo users can contribute to science while learning about the Moon and geology. The Moon Zoo educational content is designed with one purpose in mind: To make sure that a curious user can find information quickly, easily, and on (or within 1-click of) the Moon Zoo site. The Internet is filled with many excellent lunar educational products, and many high-quality digital products exist in offline archives. Finding desired resources, however, can sometimes be a challenge even for professional educators. In order to make finding content easier, we developed a glossary list and a basic concept map for our website that addresses geology, lunar exploration, observing, and the moon in history and culture, and then we populated these terms and concepts with already available materials. We also do things in a way that encourages both doing science tasks and learning at the same time! Specifically, we use pop-out audio and video players that allow users to listen, learn, and classify the lunar surface all at once. To try and understand our users better we are conducting both learning and motivations studies while also monitoring site usage. Our learning assessments use an assessment tool designed by Sebastien Cormier and Ed Prather. At the time of this writing, data collection is still in progress. We are asking users with a variety of different experience levels within Moon Zoo to answer concept questions to assess if we can measure a higher conceptual knowledge in people who have spent more time in Moon Zoo and see change over time in individual users. We are also doing interview-based grounded theory investigations into what motivates people to come to Moon Zoo and to continue using the site. Preliminary results of the investigations will be presented, along with user behaviors, and other website statistics-based research. This work is funded through NASA ROSES grant NNX09AD34G and NSF grant DRL-0917608.
Gay Pamela L.
Moon Zoo Team
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