{"id":2425,"date":"2021-09-08T00:17:58","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T00:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nau.edu\/aspirations\/?p=2425"},"modified":"2021-09-17T21:30:50","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T21:30:50","slug":"forestry-data-visualization-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/forestry-data-visualization-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening a door for all to learn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Using different teaching styles\u2014and a touch of creativity\u2014Dr. Andrew S\u00e1nchez Meador connects students with data analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors to Andrew S\u00e1nchez Meador<\/a>\u2019s office inside the Southwest Forest Science Complex can immediately see how he relates to his students\u2014engaging, innovative, playful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He adorns his door with dozens of cartoons and graphs that poke fun at the flaws and assumptions hidden in a stream of statistics, visuals, and academic jargon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, you\u2019ll find a bell curve labeled \u201cnormal distribution\u201d above a bell-curve-shaped ghost labeled \u201cparanormal distribution.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The display is endless fun, and it\u2019s completely by design, said S\u00e1nchez Meador, Associate Professor of Forest Biometrics and Quantitative Ecology and Executive Director of the Ecological Restoration Institute<\/a>. He displays parodies that raise awareness of how we interpret research and present it effectively. In a similar way, the Data Visualization course he created brings in students from across scientific disciplines to learn to blend quantitative data and artistic presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI expect you to express some complex idea that is derived from data, but if I just gave you 15 pages of numbers, you\u2019d never get there,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the Data Vis world, we\u2019d say \u2018encode it\u2019 into a visual metaphor that then can be consumed easily. If you think about it, that\u2019s all that graphs are. If you stick to the rules and follow good design, you can make them pretty. You can make them say a lot more. You can have them tell a specific story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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S\u00e1nchez Meador wants to help students who learn in unconventional ways feel capable. He loved graphic design and painting in high school but failed calculus. The math teacher told him to stick with art, which devastated him. Eventually, he went into biometrics, giving him the opportunity to marry his right- and left-brain interests\u2014and gain a personal connection to students who often enter forestry because they want to interact with nature, not numbers. \u201cMy students come in with horrible math phobia,\u201d he said. \u201cThey say the same thing about stats. They say, \u2018I hate math; I\u2019m not good at math.\u2019 I say, \u2018I\u2019m horrible at math. But I\u2019m really good at solving puzzles.\u2019 I\u2019ve found that bringing that level of humility\u2014that approach to teaching students\u2014really helps them get their feet in the right place so they\u2019re standing on a good foundation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say, \u2018I hate math; I\u2019m not good at math.\u2019 I say, \u2018I\u2019m horrible at math. But I\u2019m really good at solving puzzles.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In an age of information glut, professionals must understand how to reliably create and read visual cues. Thus, the data visualization field is growing; new fields of study are cropping up; and cross-disciplinary paths are forming across art and design, mathematics and statistics, and journalism, S\u00e1nchez Meador said. He sees fertile ground for his research in his academic home of forestry, where NAU is regularly ranked a top-ten school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data visualization is not the only way that S\u00e1nchez Meador is welcoming to student needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When students go out in the field, he arms them with tablets equipped with GPS and databases that allow them to efficiently make ecosystem assessments. This experience prepares them to succeed in their capstone course, which requires each School of Forestry major to write a management plan for a particular landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students also mimic fieldwork in the classroom when S\u00e1nchez Meador switches to \u201cfull-blown analog.\u201d Using 12-by-18 plexiglass boards and miniature trees from model railroads, he has created models based on actual forests so students learn how to sample tree density. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could take three or four samples and work this up in one class period without ever leaving the building and do just as good of a job as if we had gone to the field and just done one sample,\u201d he said. \u201cIt allows me to get more fieldwork and more hands-on experience in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S\u00e1nchez Meador sees a common theme among his various approaches. Whether using technology in the field, tactile learning in the classroom, or data visualization as a new way to see and share information, S\u00e1nchez Meador observes how students experience these different teaching styles to see what works for them. \u201cIf you just teach one way\u2014here\u2019s the formula, crunch the numbers\u2014you didn\u2019t reach a good portion of students in the classroom,\u201d he said. \u201cMy idea is to try to do it repeatedly in as many ways as I can to ensure that I\u2019m not missing somebody. I haven\u2019t figured out a way to get them all, but I\u2019m not settling for missing two-thirds of the class because their learning style wasn\u2019t handled.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using different teaching styles\u2014and a touch of creativity\u2014Dr. Andrew S\u00e1nchez Meador connects students with data analysis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":2427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,2],"tags":[144,70,145],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2425"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2843,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2425\/revisions\/2843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}