Green Touch: A Collaborative Environment for Engaging Novices in Scientific Inquiry
Team:
Consuelo Valdes, Michelle Ferreirae, Taili Feng, Heidi Wang, Kelsey Tempel, Sirui Liu, Orit Shaer
Publications:
- C. Valdes, M. Ferreirae, T. Feng, H. Wang, K. Tempel, S. Liu, O. Shaer, A Collaborative Environment for Engaging Novices in Scientific Inquiry, Proc. ACM ITS 2012.
Media:
- Research at Google's post featuring GreenTouch.
- Google's Student Blog profiles Michelle Ferreirae, member of the GreenTouch team and Wellesley '13 graduate.
- Education Awards on Google App Engine
- Wellesley News Article: Botany Notes
Project Brief:
GreenTouch is a collaborative environment that enables novice users to engage in authentic scientific inquiry. GreenTouch consists of a mobile user interface for capturing data in the field, a web application for data curation in the cloud, and a tabletop interface for exploratory analysis of heterogeneous data. This project contributes: 1) the design, implementation, and validation of a collaborative environment which allows novices to engage in scientific data capture, curation, and analysis; 2) empirical evidence for the feasibility and value of integrating interactive surfaces in college-level education based on an in situ study with 54 undergraduate students; and 3) insights collected through iterative design, providing concrete lessons and guidelines for designing multi-touch interfaces for collaborative inquiry of complex domains.