Web-based Learning Solutions for Communities of Practice

Visualising the Invisible in Science Centres and Science Museums
Scenarios for the General Public
In the science museums and science centres, the
exhibits and the related phenomena are embedded
in rich real world contexts where visitors can see
and directly experience the real world’s connections
of these phenomena. The add-on of the EXPLOAR
visit (compared to a conventional museum tour)
is that the visitors with the support of the system
will have in their disposal an additional wealth of
information. The real exhibits are mixed in their
optical view with the 3-D visual objects and representations
that the AR system is producing and
embedding into this augmented world through their
glasses. By this way many “invisible” parameters
in physical phenomena (e.g. forces, fields) will be
visualised and presented in the eyes of the visitors
augmented on the real experiments. For example,
a visitor could investigate the question “why do
planes fly?” In this case an Aerofoil exhibit could
demonstrate the application of physical laws on an
airplane wing and their effects on it. To “make the
invisible visible,” dynamic representations of air
movement and the resultant forces can be created.
It will also be possible to plot the wing’s attack
angles vs. lift force. Additionally the airflow could
be represented with virtual lines moving towards
the wing. These airflow lines could be superim-
Figure 8.
posed on the top and the bottom of the real wing
in the exhibit.
Scenarios for School Visits: Creating
Links with the School Curriculum
Bearing in mind that around 40% of the visitors
of the science museum are pupils with their
teachers, a series of school subjects (from physics,
chemistry, biology, geology, environmental
education, to history and language learning) will
be selected and presented in form of multidisciplinary
educational scenarios. For example quite
complex physical phenomena (e.g. visualization
of the E/M waves emitted by the dipole, to observe
this experiment will be able to observe the
emission of electromagnetic waves by the dipole
element, the oscillation of stored energy near
the dipole and outgoing waves will be visualized
through the augmented reality technique)
which usually cause significant difficulties to
students will be included. The 3-D visualization
of a physical quantity (in this case a force
acting on moving charged particles inside a real
3 dimensional magnetic field) which depends
on two other independent quantities, is a vital
concept in understanding the physical laws and
their applications to real life situations. Figure
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