Flyover Country, a mobile app for geoscience education

This award will develop a mobile app, Flyover Country (FC), that will bring information about relevant points of interest (POI) and map data to the user mid-flight, without the need for in-flight Wi-Fi, by downloading a strip of data based on the flightpath before the user boards the plane. GPS (Global Positioning System), which functions in airplane mode, allows precise flight tracking, making prompts for POI viewing timely and relevant. With around 4.5 million people flying every day, the potential audience for FC is huge, as is its potential for geoscience outreach. The app will directly feed high-quality geoscience information to the user at the very point when curiosity is stimulated, and could thus improve public science literacy as well as inspiring and supporting the development of a generation of geoscientists. FC could also readily be adapted for use in STEM education, and will be structured so as to provide a platform for the exposure of all types of geospatial geoscience data, forming new infrastructure for education and research.

Visualization of geoscience through combining map views, articles, audio, visual aids, and the bird's eye view from a plane window will allow for new questions, ideas, relationships, and inspiration to be cultivated by scientists and the public alike. In addition, FC may improve the current state of data accessibility and the potential for dataset integration while simultaneously increasing the incentives for improving data discovery in the geosciences and beyond. Development of the app will be split into two main tasks: (1) the geospatial acquisition of maps and POI, which may be accomplished off the device (server-side), and (2) an on-device user interface that requests, downloads, and displays the gathered data. FC will be available for both iOS and Android devices. In addition to supporting informal learning from the airplane window, this system has great potential to be adapted for ground level use. Similar in content and scope to the popular Roadside Geology book series, a mobile app could present relevant geoscience information on road trips or hikes, and do so even where connectivity is absent.