USE OF ANAGLYPH MAPS TO ASSESS STUDENT UNDERSTANDING OF EARTH SCIENCE CONCEPTS

We will present results from a preliminary study exploring comparative use of topographic and anaglyph maps in middle and high school classrooms. The purpose of the study was to assess the effectiveness of 3-dimensional maps in increasing student understanding of earth science concepts and maps. In the middle and high school setting, it may not be possible to use GeoWalls because of cost and/or technological issues. However, many of the same concepts and skills that GeoWalls would be used to teach, can be understood with the use of anaglyph maps, a paper version of a GeoWall. Middle and high school teachers and students from five schools in Minnesota, faculty from a K-12 teacher preparation institution and a research institution were involved with this study.

Teachers prepared pre and post-tests for the topographic and anaglyph maps used in the study. Students and teachers were surveyed for their attitudes toward using the different types of maps. Preliminary results show that some gains were made in content for the anaglyph maps in comparison to the topographic maps. However, the largest gains were made in students’ attitudes towards the different types of maps. Clearly, more students preferred using the 3-dimensional maps to the topographic maps. While the ‘novelty’ effect of the anaglyph maps and using the colored transparency glasses may have some influence on this, comment analysis showed that students clearly understood the anaglyph maps and their landscape features. Higher-order thinking was also visible in observations of students in the classrooms. Follow-up teacher workshops have led to the development of background material and exercises related to the maps.

The session discussion topics will include use of existing data sets in map generation, use of the maps in standards based teaching, and use of the maps in field and classroom based activities. Example maps will be presented.