Life on Earth is a National Science Foundation-funded project to (1) advance public understanding of biodiversity and the history of life on Earth, and (2) advance our knowledge of how people interact and learn from large interactive science data visualizations on multi-touch tabletop displays in public settings. Our multi-institutional project team has developed a series of learning activities that are on display at four natural history museums across the United States. The focal exhibit, utilizing large data sets from four online databases including Tree of Life web project, Encyclopedia of Life, National Center for Biotechnology Information and Time Tree, allows visitors to explore the relationships of thousands of species over 3.5 billion years of life on Earth. Visitors interact with this vast tree of life, called the DeepTree, using touch gestures on a large multi-touch computer display. Our project team brings together researchers in human-computer interaction and information visualization, learning sciences, museum exhibit design, cognitive and developmental psychology, and evolutionary biology.
