It's a challenge that's as old as the hills for geology professors: How do you take page after page of hard-to-grasp numbers and turn them into pictures that communicate a lesson to students? Surmounting this challenge is the goal of the Interactive Teaching Database (ITD) project being led by Matthew W. Becker, assistant professor in the Department of Geology.

This ambitious software project-funded by a $79,520 grant from the National Science Foundation-seeks to create a visual database for upper-level students of hydrology, the study of the earth's water system.

To accomplish this, Becker and his colleagues are using research information gathered from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, an ecosystem scientists have studied for nearly 40 years. Within this database is embedded a proverbial fount of knowledge; however, if students can't picture the angle of the stream, or the slope of a valley, or the outline of a lake, how can they make sense of it?

"The problem with traditional teaching methods is that it's difficult to show how hydrologic factors change over time," explains Becker. "With the ITD project, we're trying to take this (Hubbard Brook) data-which, in its current form, is not very approachable-and synthesize it so students can get something out of it. We want to turn it into lessons that not only teach something, but retain the character of the research."

When the project is complete, students will be able to maneuver about in a three-dimensional visual representation of the Hubbard Brook watershed and click on icons that, for example, generate a hydrograph of how the streamflow rate of a particular brook responded to a rainy summer or a dry one.

They also will be able to learn how to collect, understand and synthesize hydrologic data and grasp how these data are represented by numerical models. In addition, they will learn how to construct accurate models, essential tools for the 21st-century hydrologist.

"In geology, we rely very heavily on numerical models," Becker says. "The problem is that you can't see anything. Hydrogeology field trips are like going to the submarine races." By contrast, using the visual database, students will be able to do such things as inspect a stream's tributaries one by one-from afar and close up-and then examine the data to correlate the numbers with what they've seen. It's a more intuitive way of making sense of hydrologic concepts. "What we're trying to do is have a more organic way of understanding this data," Becker adds.

One of the challenges of the project is that computer technology is changing so quickly. "We're extremely sensitive to using the right technology, so we know it will be usable in two years," Becker explains. The basic language of the software is Virtual Reality Modeling Language, which can be read by most Web browsers using plug-ins.

The ITD project will undergo student testing in the department's new 16-station computer lab and currently is being used in a 300-level hydrology class taught by Marcus Bursik, associate professor of geology and co-principal investigator on the project.

"I've included some of the data on stream-flow gauges into the course Web site," Bursik says. "The way the software works, it's forcing students to learn how to use an SQL (Structured Query Language) query, as well as how to set up the axes on a graph and how to name the axes correctly. In a program like Excel, by contrast, it just automatically does that and you don't learn the theory behind it."