Google-based technology in Ely Library offers virtual views of the entire galaxy.
It was an unusual sight, as students, faculty and community members gathered around a cluster of screens on the second floor of the Ely Library in April to virtually travel and explore nearly any part of the Earth—and beyond.
The amazing technology they stood before is called Liquid Galaxy. Projected onto seven screens, standing seven feet tall, Liquid Galaxy is a revolutionary product developed by Google that utilizes the company’s Google Earth program to take users almost anywhere—on Earth or elsewhere—in seconds.
Capable of showing the surface of Mars as clearly as taking users to a museum in Denmark, Liquid Galaxy’s potential is seemingly limitless. Tom Raffensperger, dean of Academic Information Services, says it will be available to the greater campus community during open lab times after it is first made available to professors and students.
In the summer of 2013, two professors from the Geography and Regional Planning Department attended a geospatial technology and higher education workshop at Google
in California.
When they saw Google’s Liquid Galaxy presentation, Carsten Braun, Ph.D., and Tim LeDoux, Ph.D., thought the software was cool and a great teaching tool. After returning, , they pitched the idea of bringing Liquid Galaxy to the University, and the administration and faculty agreed it was technology the University had to have.
Moreover, Liquid Galaxy is seen as a tool that can be shared with the community as well.
“It was really a collaborative effort,” says Raffensperger. “It was a lot of departments getting together. Here in the library, we worked hard to make this space available. In addition, the folks in IT (Information Services), Academic Information Services, Academic Affairs and just a lot of different departments began seeing how this would benefit the University as a whole.”
The accuracy and startling realism of Google Earth’s mapping across the 260 degrees of tall screens was simply amazing. Westfield State’s professors from the Department of Geography and Regional Planning (GARP) took the opportunity to speak about Liquid Galaxy and what it means for the University.
Raffensperger added that professors such as Dr. LeDoux will be using the program for introductory and advanced global imaging systems (GIS) courses to take students to distant cities.
“It allows students to go places that they really couldn’t go otherwise. For example, Dr. Ledoux is using it to take his students to Detroit, Mich., to explore the urban blight they are studying.
“They can ‘see’ the vacant buildings and vanquished neighborhoods,” says Raffensperger.
“As a geographer and planner, I talk a lot about different cities and the issues they’re facing, such as Detroit with its bankruptcy,” Dr. LeDoux says. “I can talk a lot about the legacy—the racism, the disinvestment issues—and that helps students paint a picture, but to take them on the ground and walk through the neighborhoods of Detroit using this—they see it, the abandoned buildings—and it brings home the visual element to them.”
Using Liquid Galaxy, Dr. LeDoux projected a neighborhood in Detroit. Not only can you see the homes and streets, you are able to virtually “walk” around and investigate the area.
Other professors plan to use Liquid Galaxy in their classrooms. “I will be using this in my physical geography class, which is about landforms—glaciers, rivers, mountains, beaches—all kinds of stuff that, with this immersive program, you can experience beach erosion, experience sea level rise, much better than a static picture,” Dr. Braun says. “We can do labs and say, ‘Let’s go to the Grand Canyon. Let’s look at what goes on at the intersection of land and ocean.’”
“We’ll be working with the folks from the Art Department, or any other interested people, to create content experiences that they can use in their classes,” Raffensperger adds. “We’re going to be working on this in the next few months. You teach English literature. You teach art. Let’s see how we can create activities that let students experience this in a special sense.”
Dr. LeDoux adds, “This can be applied to all the different disciplines at the University. Whether you’re trying to ground literature for students, poetry that a poet is writing about a landscape, it’s a very vivid image, but actually seeing what they’re writing about is very powerful.”
Dr. Braun was proud to say that Liquid Galaxy is so far only available in museums and large research-based institutions, none of which are the size of Westfield State.
“I’d be super happy to talk to anybody about how to make this useful,” Dr. Braun says. “In a perfect world, we want to help everybody get this. But first, let’s take this off the campus and bring it into the community, working in the local schools, and make this a tool or experience that we share with the entire community.”
Westfield State University Interim President Elizabeth Preston says, “We are very excited to be able to provide this. Part of the reason we decided to invest in the technology is because it’s very clear that it has applications for all kinds of disciplines beyond the obvious. So we’re very excited to have the technology on campus.”
