GeoPad: A 21st century tool for field education

Updated 11:00 AM November 10, 2003

GeoPad: A 21st century tool for field education

By Nancy Ross Flanigan
News Service

Notebook, rock hammer, compass, clipboard, topographic maps and aerial photographs—these are the tools that generations of geology students have used to learn the science and hone their mapping and observation skills in the field.

U-M geological sciences student Erin Dimaggio and Western Michigan University student Jake Marson use a traditional map board and GeoPad, respectively, along the Snake River in Wyoming. (Photo by John Geissman)

Now add GeoPad, a mobile computer application developed at U-M to enhance field education.

Combining newly available TabletPC computers designed to withstand outdoor conditions, integrated Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers, digital datasets, Geographic Information System (GIS) software and 3-D visualization software, the GeoPad allows students to record, manipulate, integrate and view their observations and mapping data in ways that weren't possible with traditional paper-based methods.

The young scientists can do it all while perched on rocky ledges in the field, as use of the GeoPad during the past summer showed. The units, which weigh about 4Â˝ pounds, are worn in shoulder harnesses, something like the slings used for carrying babies. As students hike and scramble over rocks, the GeoPads can be flipped up and secured against their chests; when it's time to check maps or enter data, the students simply flip them back down. In the open position, the harness straps suspend the computer tablets at waist level, making it easy for users to enter commands and information with a special pen. Users even can add field notes and sketches, using digital ink technology.

During a seven-week summer field geology course at U-M's Camp Davis near Jackson, Wyo., students used GeoPads for their final mapping projects. "The old-fashioned way was to go out with a solid surface on which you can mount maps," says Peter Knoop, a School of Information research investigator and geological sciences doctoral candidate.

"Students would get aerial photos of the area and, printed on transparency paper, a topographic map that they could lay on top of the aerial photo. On top of that, they'd have a piece of Mylar that they could write on," he says. "With the GeoPad, we're doing the digital equivalent of that, but with much better and more complete ability to manipulate the information and images." For example, students can rotate the maps to get different views and switch from 2-D to 3-D representations of what they're looking at in the real world.

That's a big advantage in helping students understand how a 2-D map corresponds to the 3-D landscape, a skill that many find difficult to master, says Ben van der Pluijm, professor of geological sciences. Students also can incorporate other information for the area, such as soil characteristics, vegetation patterns or land-use data. "By providing more information than we could give them in the field in the past, we're significantly adding to the learning experience rather than just replacing the old-fashioned way of doing it," van der Pluijm says.

Knoop and van der Pluijm discussed and demonstrated the GeoPad at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Seattle Nov. 2-5.

Support for the GeoPad project came from LSA's Department of Geological Sciences and Global Change Program; the Microsoft Corporation; the University of Illinois at Chicago; the University of Minnesota; and the U.S. Geological Survey's EROS Data Center.

GeoPad: A 21st century tool for field education

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