Education Center on Computational
Science and Engineering

Univerity of Houston - Downtown
Secondary Teachers
February 19-20, 1999

Dr. Kris Stewart (stewart@cs.sdsu.edu)
Assoc. Professor, San Diego State University

Director, Education Center on Computational Science & Engineering,
a partnership activity of the NPACI and San Diego Supercomputer Center
for the California State University System

This URL is www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/projects/UHDT.html

What is the mission of the EC/CSE?

Foster the incorporation of high performance research tools for scientific investigation into the undergraduate curriculum to better prepare learners for post-Baccalaureate activities where

• collaborative, interdisciplinary teams,
• sophisticated computer tools, and
• effective communication among the team members and with others

are used in research and problem solving.

Computational science is the third leg of science, which complements theory and the "wet lab", and is made possible now through the increasingly sophicated mathematical models and ever-evolving computer power available on the desktop and via the network. It is the exciting blend of:

• Science and related academic disciplines
• Computation (desktop, mainframes, and/or supercomputers)
• Information development, retrieval and processing
• Communications, and
• Visualization

January 1999 introduction Ed Center activities is available CSU/AAHE presentation

Some recent images and projects of EC/CSE Activities

• Information Competency and School Teacher Preparation
• Molecular Biology/Chemistry Worksheet
• Distance Learning SDSU to Kalamazoo
• VRML Scene of Geologic Layers
• Survey of SDSU students using computer in the classroom
• SDSU Faculty Fellows - Fall 98

Supercomputer Teacher Enhancement Program

• Education Resources at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
• Science Discovery Page (SDSC)
• Virtual Reality Modeling Language. The San Diego Supercomputer Center is the national respository for this powerful language allowing the display of three-dimensional objects through a web-interface.
• Information Scout at U. Wisconsin. the Scout Report has been an authoritative source of information available on the Internet. From its web page, you can subscribe to the weekly mailing of current, topical information.

Mathematics

• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
  • World of Mathematics
• Mathematical Modeling and Computational Science as a possible motivation for mathematical study Shodor Foundation's Computational Science Education Reference Desk.
  • Modeling and Simulation
• Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM)
• American Mathematical Society (AMS)

Undergraduate Curriculum

• High Performance Computing CS 575 Supercomputing, upper division, undergraduate course at SDSU, emphasis: evaluating performance (accuracy and work), validating computed results, responsible computer use, group-work on computational experiments
• Civil Engineering Applications of Spatial Information Science taught by Dr. Ilya Zaslavsky (EC/CSE GIS Staff Scientist) Fall '98
• Bridging Environments, CS 205 Computational Problem Solving and Visualization, sophomore level at SDSU, emphasis: first programming language C within MATLAB environment, cross-platform visualization (Mac, PC, Unix), taught in a hands-on Xterminal (UNIX) Lab.
• Learners' Problem Solving Skills, Bottom-Up Design of Computational Experiments
• Group-based work on Responsible Computer Use, a Case Study
• Web-based Interactive Environment in Distance Teaching of Technology-intensive Geography Courses (Geog 567/569); learners at Western Michigan U., Kalamazoo MI, instructor at EC/CSE, San Diego CA.

Resources for HPC

NPACI (www.npaci.edu/Partners/partner.html) is an association of 39 universities and research centers from 18 states, with SDSC as the leading edge site. The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) conducts and supports activities in computational science, a third fundamental method for conducting scientific research (in addition to laboratory experimentation and theoretical investigation). Computational Science is defined as using computers (in this context, high performance computers) and related computing technologies (such as applications software, high speed networking, scientific visualization technologies, and large data storage systems) to visualize, analyze, and simulate natural and social phenomena.

Application Thrust Areas of NPACI include

• Molecular Science,
• Neuroscience,
• Earth Systems Science, and
• Engineering.

Technology Thrust Areas of NPACI include

• Data-intensive Computing,
• Interaction-Environments,
• Metasystems, and
• Programming Tools & Environments.

AND Education, Outreach and Training

Some examples of past and current projects of SDSC and NPACI:

The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR, www.icpsr.umich.edu) is an NPACI partner within the Education and Outreach Thrust Area to encourage new disciplines to use technologies from High Performance Computing research sites. The ICPSR Data Archive (www.icpsr.umich.edu/archive1.html) is familiar to social science researchers and the ICPSR Summer Program (www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/) is a long-standing opportuntiy bringing social science researchers together. ICPSR has plans to incorporate the High Performance Computing resources from the NPACI soon.

NPACI Data-Intensive Computing Environments: (http://www.npaci.edu/DICE)

• Alexandria Digital Library (http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/) A distributed digital library for geographically-referenced information, being developed at UC Santa Barbara  and mirrored at SDSC.
• ELib (UC Berkeley Digital Library) (elib.cs.berkeley.edu) Also, part of the NSF/ARPA/NASA Digital Library Initiative and the California Environment Resource Evaluation System (CERES) with the goal "to develop the technologies for intelligent access to massive distributed collections of photographs, satellite images, maps, full text documents and 'multivalent' documents." Mirrored at SDSC
• University of Michigan Digital Library (www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/") "In UMDL, we are instead embracing the open, evolving, decentralized advantages of the web and introducing computational mechanisms to temper its inherent chaos. However, we are also embracing the traditional values of service, organization and access that have made libraries powerful intellectual institutions." Mirrored at SDSC starting June 1998.

 

 

US Economic History, a 3D visualization (http://www.sdsc.edu/GatherScatter/GSspring97/pailthorpe.html): A simulation of main economic indicators, in 3D coordinates (boom, stagflation, depression), to convey the extreme fluctuations during the first half of the century and the stability of the economy since World War II. Developed by Bernard Pailthorpe, Sydney Vislab/SDSC, and Richard Carson, University of California, San Diego/SDSC.

San Diego Bay Project (http://www.sdsc.edu/SDBAY/): A collection of databases, resources,  models, software, and literature, related to San Diego Bay, water quality issues in particular. The databases are searchable, some models can be run on-line, their results are visualized on maps and in VRML. More information and links related to the project are accessible from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis page at SDSC.

Biodiversity Insight System (BIS) (http://biodi.sdsc.edu/): This system for analysis and visualisation (and mapping) of biodiversity data is being developed by the University of Kansas and the San Diego Supercomputer Center

EarthRise (http://earthrise.sdsc.edu/): This is an online collection of over 100,000 of photographic images of different parts of the Earth taken by astronauts during the Space Shuttle flights in the last 15 years.

Examples of projects underway at the EC/CSE. Short descriptions are at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/projects/eccseproj.html

• Java and VRML resources for scientists and engineers. Our growing repository of VRML scenes and Java applets arranged by disciplines, is available at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/repository/
• Java-based instructional interface and analytical extension for Protein Data Base (PDB) developed at SDSC (Deacon)
• Testbed for distance learning collaboratory techniques [Tango, NetMeeting, Habanero, ...]. (X. Li)
• "Virtual Professor" Distance Learning in computationally intensive courses (I. Zaslavsky)
Collaboratory use of GIS over the Internet in instruction (together with NPAC - Syracuse, Dr. Geoffrey Fox), and the experiment in distance teaching of GIS and spatial analysis (EC/CSE, SDSU  to Geography, WMU)
• Group learning in Supercomputing instruction: (K. Stewart)
• Problem-based learning in computational programming instruction. (K. Stewart)

vBNS

vBNS proposal coordinated by CSU Chancellor's office. Participatation by SDSU, CalPoly Pomona, and CSU/SB within the CSU (just granted by NSF!). More information is at http://www.edcenter.sdsu.edu/projects/vbns_summary.html.

Examples of collaborations already formed by EC/CSE

• Evaluation and assessment of the Ed Center by the LEAD center, at National Institute for Science Education, NISE, U. Wisconsin, Madison
• NPACI partnership "contract" with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH), NPACI partner in Virginia
• Industrial partnership with Mathworks (MATLAB, which now has MapTools) (November 1997)

Information about us:

Web site: www.edcenter.sdsu.edu

NPACI ENVISION Magazine; We have recent issues for you today as hard copy.

www.npaci.edu/envision/v14.1/edcenter.html go directly to article on the Ed Center

NPACI Online October 1997

What can the EC/CSE do for you?

Dr. Kris Stewart (stewart@sdsu.edu), Director
Education Center on Computational Science & Engineering
San Diego State University, Love Library Addition, Rm 73
www.edcenter.sdsu.edu