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Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11019.html SPATIAL THINKING IN EVERYDAY LIFE, AT WORK, AND IN SCIENCE 75 Representative benthonic foraminifera typical of inner and outer shelf biofacies and upper bathyal biofacies in the Gulf of California. FIGURE 3.20 Ascribing meaning to the shape of a natural object: carbonate-shelled microfossils. SOURCE: Kennett, 1982. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, N.J. inferring the influencing processes. The key questions are: What processes or forces could have acted upon this mineral, landform, fossil, or organism (the fossil before it died) to cause it to have this shape? What function could this form have served in the life of the organism? The novice generally begins by applying learned rules of thumb. At the expert level, this thought process involves reasoning from first principles about the connection among form, function, and history and doing so in the context of an expert knowledge base about the normal characteristics of the class of objects under study. Students, as novices however, may misunderstand fundamental processes (Figure 3.22). The ability to reason from first principles well is one of the abilities people have in mind when they say that someone has good “geologic intuition.” Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Learning to Think Spatially: GIS as a Support System in the K-12 Curriculum http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11019.html 76 LEARNING TO THINK SPATIALLY FIGURE 3.21 Ascribing meaning to the shape of a natural object: the shape and orientation of the mineral grain in this photomicrograph are interpreted as evidence that the rock has undergone shearing. SOURCE: The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Department of Geological Sciences. Recognizing a Shape or Pattern amid a Cluttered or Noisy Background An experienced interpreter of seismic reflection data can confidently and reproducibly trace seismic reflectors across a graphic profile that looks like uniform gray noise to the untrained eye (Figure 3.23). A gifted paleontologist can stand at an outcrop with a bus full of geologists and spot fossils where others see nothing. Visualizing a Three-Dimensional Object, Structure, or Process by Examining Observations Collected in One or Two Dimensions Physical oceanographers measure the temperature and salinity of seawater by lowering an instrument package on a wire vertically down from a ship and recording the temperature, conductivity, and pressure at the instrument. Thousands of vertical conductivity-temperature-depth profiles have been combined to create our current understanding of the three-dimensional interfingering of the water masses of the world’s oceans. A field geologist examines rock layers and structures where they are exposed at Earth’s surface in outcrop, taking advantage of differently oriented road cuts, stream cuts, wave cuts, or quarries to glimpse the third dimension. From these fragmented surficial views, he or she constructs a mental view of the interior of the rock body or, more commonly, multiple possible views. The expert’s visualization of the parts of a structure that cannot be seen is guided by more than simple mechanical interpolation between observable sections or profiles. The physical oceanographer’s visualization is, for example, shaped by physics that decrees that lower-density water masses overlie higher-density water masses (Figure 3.24). The field geologist’s visualization is shaped by the understanding that marine sedimentation processes tend to produce layers roughly horizontal and roughly uniform in thickness before deformation. Marie Tharp’s case (see Section Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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