KML VERSUS PDF: AN EXAMINATION OF STUDENT LEARNING ASSOCIATED WITH NON-TRADITIONAL EARTH AND PLANETARY GEOLOGY LABORATORY ACTIVITIES

Educators may assume that students learn from animations, visualizations, and interactive, hands-on exercises in geoscience labs. We tested some of these assumptions with an IRB-compliant comparison of control and experimental labs in a large general education class of over 300 students. Earth and Planetary Science course content was developed in two digital formats: using Keyhole Markup Language (KML) to create interactive tours in Google Earth for four experimental groups with about 45 students per group and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) for a similar number of control groups. Four additional experimental groups, including one smaller honors group of about 12 students, were presented with both formats. Google Earth has Mars and Moon virtual globes built in. We added Venus (1) and Mercury (2) as ground overlays blanketing the Earth globe.

Student learning was tested with pre- and post-questionnaires and long-term retention was tested with a follow-up post-questionnaire. Additionally, we observed student behavior in lab and recorded our anecdotal impressions. Finally, student volunteers also participated in semi-structured interviews.

The PDF documents contained identical text and images to the placemark balloons in the KML version. Results from the study are currently being analyzed and more interviews are under way. Anecdotal observations reveal that students using KML were more engaged as a group whereas those using PDFs appeared more distracted and uninterested. Ironically, some students felt the PDF tour style was a more effective teaching style. From the interviews conducted so far, however, it appears that students who participated in the PDF tour style alone showed no recollection of geological processes on Mars whereas KML had at least some pedagogical benefit.

(1) De Paor, D.G., Hansen, V.L., Dordevic, M.M., 2012. Google Venus, Geological Society of America Special Paper Special Paper 492, p. 1–16.

(2) http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/google.html