Web-Based GIS Data Access and Management Technologies Can Facilitate Both Geoscience Classroom Instruction and Student Research: Some Examples

Web-accessible geospatial information system (GIS) technologies have advanced in concert with an expansion of data resources that can be accessed and used by researchers, educators and students. These resources facilitate the development of data-rich instructional resources and activities that can be used to transition seamlessly into undergraduate research projects.

GeoMapApp (www.geomapapp.org; Carbotte et al, 2004) is a GIS focused on the oceans that is utilized heavily in classroom activities developed for the MARGINS Data in the Classroom project. Both "packaged" datasets (i.e., global earthquake foci, volcanoes, bathymetry) and "raw" data (seismic surveys, magnetics, gravity) are served, along with WFS linkages to other resources (GPS/seismic, geochemical, and drillsite results), permitting comprehensive characterization of many regions of the ocean basins. Geospatially controlled data of all sorts can be imported into GeoMapApp visualizations. GeoMapApp results, interfaced in some cases with Google Earth, are key to MARGINS "Mini-Lesson resources based on research results from several NSF-MARGINS Program Focus Sites. These materials are available for use and testing from the project webpage (http://serc.carleton.edu/margins/).

JMARS (jmars.asu.edu) maintained by the Mars Space Flight Facility at ASU, permits study of composite image datasets (topography, photography, infrared spectroscopy, magnetics, etc.) from the Viking, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions, with linkages to original MOC, Viking, and THEMIS image strips. JMARS permits dynamic integration of datasets, permitting the recognition of phenomena not evident from any single source. Mars orbiter source data and imagery is public domain, so anyone use it for undergraduate planetary science investigations. I have developed a sequence of flexible activities using JMARS and its associated data and imagery for an introductory planetary geology course, that transition from feature identification to studying the geologic histories of student-selected planetary regions. Early results indicate students enjoy these activities, but I have no "takers" so far for pursuing independent research.