Connected Gardens: Timelapse Wondercasting

PIs: Norm Lownds, Carrie Heeter
Team: Brian Winn, Pete Maziak, Laura Portwood-Stacer, Jason Tye

The Connected Gardens Project is funded by the Dow Foundation. The full proposal can be viewed by clicking here.

WONDERCASTING
This summer and fall we are working to create "Children's Garden Wondercasts." This will be a monthly series of up to four timelapse photography sequences featured in each wondercast. Our wondercast anchorperson is a bee. Reporters include worm, ant, caterpillar, and butterfly. In the first month we'll be looking at a flower as it comes into bloom, a weathercam showing the ground and sky, shadows in the garden over time, and a plant's eye view looking out at visitors to the garden as they look closely at a plant.

As we looked at other people's time lapse movies, we realized that time lapse is usually presented without clear visualization of how much time is passing. You see something in fast motion, but you really don't have a sense of how fast. So, we are implementing an analog clock to show hours and minutes passing. And we are working on an equivalent familiar calendar view to show days and weeks passing. An analog clock (with moving hands) gives a much stronger feel for time passing than a digital clock where different numbers flash. Our calendar needs to have the same visceral impact.

In addition to experiencing the passage of time, our interface will let kids control time. They can play, rewind, step forward or back, and even drag at their own speed through time, controlling the visual display, clock, and calendar. Our wondercasts begin with the reporter asking "Wonder Questions," fascintating things to look for and think about while exploring the timelapse. As we progress in the project, we will also experiment with interfaces where kids can compare two timelapses, and can link time in the timelapse to other time-based data such as temperature or sunlight.

Our timelapse viewer will eventually be a tool other gardens and classrooms can modify and use themselves. It will be possible to input your own images, time, and day data and use the viewer to control your own time lapse movie. Participating schools and gardens will be welcome to submit guest "wondercast" reports for inclusion in our monthly series. All of the time lapses will be archived, so they are available any time, not just in the month they were featured.

MARS GARDEN
In Spring, 2002, Lownds and the Comm Tech Lab worked with 69 sixth graders and one third grade class to conduct prototypical plant growth experiments using simulated Mars dirt from NASA Ames Research Center. NASA's goal is to learn the minimum requirements to grow a plant on Mars. In addition, the participating classes learned about the process of scientific experiments in a fun, meaningful context while conducting real research. This work resulted in starting the Galactic Garden Virtual Laboratory project.

KIDS' TOUR
Last year, in addition to the many field trips and programs Norm Lownds administered, the Connected Gardens Project produced the spatial Kids Tour of the Michigan 4H Children's Garden, a model of elegant integration of virtual and real worlds, visually rich, filled with interactivity, explorations, stories, garden sign language, other fun learning experiences for K-6, and tips for teachers, deeply integrated with the real garden. This completed project is described in more detail under PRODUCTS.