THE NEW ERA IN GEOSCIENCE EXPLORATION - "FOR THE REST OF US"

We are entering a new era of Earth and space exploration.

Web-based access to an awesome array of images and data enables a “science attentive” general public to observe and explore our world – and others beyond – in a way that would seem magical only a decade ago.

We (the general public) can track hurricanes with half-hourly updates of satellite images, explore thousands of photos of Earth's surface taken by the astronauts, and have direct access to terabytes of satellite imagery. We follow along as submarines explore the depths of the oceans and monitor the rovers on Mars, seeing the images at virtually the same time as the scientists. All this takes place on our desktops, at the click of a mouse.

This is not news for the scientific community. The pivotal role of Internet and web access to data to support scientific research has become so ubiquitous as to feel almost transparent. Scientists take it for granted.

Yet for people with at least a passing interest in science, this technology opens an extraordinary window on our home planet, and indeed the entire universe. When NASA spacecraft Deep Impact reached comet Temple 1, NASA's web site had over 1 billion hits in a single day! Similarly, in the month after the Spirit rover landed, NASA's Mars web site had over 50,000,000 visitors.

These numbers can not be ignored. In fact, they herald a revolution in Earth and space exploration, in which the public has a front row seat, experiencing new worlds at the same time as the scientists. This interest goes beyond the headline-grabbing space missions. For example, weather sites are extremely popular and enable people not just to get the official forecast, but also to fine-tune their own local forecast, using satellite and radar imagery to track storm fronts.

So, I postulate that the Earth and space science community should embrace this revolution, and create new ways to directly engage the public in exploration. This is not to abandon the role of solid content knowledge as the underlying basis for informed exploration. Rather, it is to expand the vision scientists have of education, from merely delivering content to also helping people develop the skills and experience the joy of inquiry, exploration and discovery.

In the full paper, I will present illustrative examples.

“Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire!” William Yeats