The present study investigated the use of visual trajectory and haptic force information in learning concepts involving force. Specifically, learning modules for instructing buoyant forces were developed for use with a computer monitor and a force feedback device. Students from an elementary school at the fourth and sixth grades were recruited to participate in the study. The students were separated into visual and visuohaptic groups to measure the possible benefits haptic feedback might provide as compared to the vision-alone condition. A 10-question content test was developed and administered before and after the learning activities. The pretest and posttest scores showed that all students benefited from the computer simulations. The visuohaptic group did not perform significantly better than the visual group. An important finding was that the fourth graders learned as much as the sixth graders, despite their younger age and little prior exposure to concepts such as density and volume, which are important for understanding buoyancy. Future work will design instructional and assessment materials that focus more on the haptic modality.

TeraGrid (www.teragrid.org) is launching a new program to establish partnerships with campuses. Opportunities for partnership are in the developmental stage and may include one or more of the following possibilities: 1) authentication and authorization for access from a campus grid to TeraGrid resources, 2) provisioning of computational resources to the community, 3) provisioning of scientific data collections to the community, 4) campus affiliations, and 5) training programs for campus faculty, staff and students.Community input is needed at this time to help shape and define the nature of these partnerships to create a win-win environment that will benefit the research and education community.Participants will be provided with information about the goals and objectives of the campus partnership program and will be encouraged to share their perspectives on how a campus partnership program can best be structured to benefit campus communities. These discussions will help shape the development of the program.

Research in the area of spatial visualization enjoys a long tradition in the discipline of cognitive psychology. However, the computer graphics profession, particularly the educational component, takes into account a person's spatial abilities as a means for designing effective instructional experiences and assessments. It builds on a learner's visual or haptic abilities. This paper outlines a brief history of visualization assessments instruments and strategies and their use within computer graphics-related learning environments. The use of virtual reality technologies to enable the learning process is discussed, as well as an introduction to visual science as a discipline.