COMMUNICATING, VISUALIZING, AND PUBLICIZING EARTHSCOPE DATA AND MODEL PRODUCTS USING ACTIVE EARTH KIOSKS

A primary objective of the EarthScope Education and Outreach program is to translate technical scientific results into understandable, technologically advanced, and attention-grabbing multimedia and tools. Using 3-D visualizations and animations, EarthScope instruments can be visualized in space and time to demonstrate their physical location, how they operate, and whom they directly impact. Using EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory GPS velocity vectors, USArray earthquake hypocenters, and SAFOD drilling cores, these data can help communicate the physical aspects of EarthScope measurements. Models developed by scientists that link these data with real Earth materials and properties can help communicate what we can learn about fault processes from EarthScope data. However, perhaps the most challenging milestone is the process of coalescing these products into a multimedia educational package and successfully delivering it to public audiences. Following the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS)’s lead in developing interactive Earth science kiosk multimedia (bundled in a free product called Active Earth), we have begun to construct and install EarthScope-themed interactive kiosks in our local community to help educate students, teachers, and the general public about the EarthScope project. IRIS’s Active Earth is a customizable, interactive, real-time Earth science display for science and museum centers. We are currently developing custom kiosk modules that will feature games, animations, and virtual field trips highlighting national and regional impacts of EarthScope, PI-driven research results, and EarthScope career opportunities.