EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
INTERNET EXERCISE #2 - TOOLS & JEWELS FOR EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE RESEARCH
Before we can begin to explore much of Earth System Science, we need to become aware of some of the necessary tools for Earth Systems research - hopefully, as we become familiar with these applications, you will discover for yourself the "jewels" of knowledge regarding the Earth Systems that these advanced technologies have made possible.
Your first task this week is to familiarize yourselves with software that will help you create the visualizations that will guide our explorations this semester. Once upon a time, it was extraordinarily difficult to construct computer animations using scientific visualization. Over time, the task of creating visualization became easier, but was still time consuming. Now, it has become incredibly easy - so easy the Microsoft includes a rather powerful program for creating digital movies with Windows XP operating systems.
Windows Movie Maker is a very nice application that makes movie making easy and fun. With practice, very sophisticated movies can be created in very short time, and these can be used to illustrate a great many Earth system processes. Music or narration can be added as well as text captions to give your movie more power. The Movie Maker software is absolutely free from Micrsoft. If you are unable to locate a version of Windows Movie Maker on your computer, it can be downloaded at no cost from www.microsoft.com.
To locate Windows Movie Maker on your computer, find the "My Computer" icon on your desktop or elsewhere and double click on it. Choose "Local disk (C:)" and double click on it. Double click on the "Program Files" folder, then scroll down the page until you see "Movie Maker". Double click on this folder, then double click on the "moviemk.exe" file to launch the program. Familiarize yourself with the operation of the program by reading the online "Help" documentation to learn what its features are.