WHIRL Team Profile: Image Makers

This team is designing a tool that will help students test their own understanding of processes that change over time. The tool will allow students to both construct animations of processes (e.g., life cycles of various organisms, the water cycle) and capture and annotate visual images in the course of laboratory or field investigations. It will build on the capabilities of Sketchy, a handheld software tool developed at the University of Michigan. The new additions will be assessment capabilities that will allow teachers to pose "what-if" questions that require students to describe how particular processes would be affected by changes to the systems in which they operate. Teachers see these visualization and animation tools as helping to address the need to enhance their knowledge of students' understanding of complex processes.