School of Info. Management & SystemsU. C. Berkeley

Science, Vol 300, Issue 5626, p 1694, 13 June 2003

Teaching with a Visual Tree of Life

• What we did

• Findings and Recommendations

• Visions for the Future

Teaching with a Visual Tree of Life

• What we did

• Findings and Recommendations

• Visions for the Future

Study Goals

• Context

• Value

• Usability Challenges

Study Goals

• Understand how teachers currently teach about the evolutionary relationships between organisms

• Determine how future software might facilitate common teaching tasks

• Identify usability challenges

Methods

• Talk with People

• Examine Existing Visualizations

Teaching with a Visual Tree of Life

• What we did

• Findings and Recommendations

• Visions for the Future

Key Findings & Recommendations

Key Findings & Recommendations

• A GAP between research and teaching

• The info is overwhelming!! Usability is key

• The Tree’s history serves learning

• Build bridges to tree-thinking

“This is scientific information by scientists for scientists.”

–High school teacher

Crossing the Gap

Key Findings & Recommendations

• A GAP between research and teaching

• The info is overwhelming!! Usability is key

• The Tree’s history serves learning

• Build bridges to tree-thinking

Key Findings & Recommendations

• A GAP between research and teaching

• The info is overwhelming!! Usability is key

• The Tree’s history serves learning

• Build bridges to tree-thinking

Key Findings & Recommendations

• A GAP between research and teaching

• The info is overwhelming!! Usability is key

• The Tree’s history serves learning

• Build bridges to tree-thinking

Common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs

Common ancestor of humans and

dinosaurs

Evolutionary Relationships

……..Progress! The Star!! It’s all about Me!

tim

e

Node flip movie

Teaching with a Visual Tree of Life

• What we did

• Findings and Recommendations

• Visions for the Future

Our Clients

• CIPRES outreach• Tree of Life web project• HCIL biodiversity information visualization• Ed experts at UCMP and University of Pittsburgh

Visions for the Future

• User-centered design and development

• A biologically meaningful index to

biological information

• A public mental map of the tree of life

Visions for the Future

• User-centered design and development

• A biologically meaningful index to

biological information

• A public mental map of the tree of life

Visions for the Future

• User-centered design and development

• A biologically meaningful index to

biological information

• A public mental map of the tree of life

A big THANK YOU!!

The CIPRES Project www.phylo.org Advisors Nancy Van House and Brent Mishler

Our participants Cynthia Parr at HCIL Kim Rathbun Adrian Barnett UCMP

This work is funded by the CIPRES projectBUILDING THE TREE OF LIFE: A National Resource for Phyloinformatics and Computational Phylogenetics

Part of the NSF Information Technology Research program