Cells to Self: Living Liquid

Interactive Visualizations of Scientific Data Sets

The goal of Living Liquid was to discover ways to design interactive exhibits that allow visitors to explore data sets—large collections of scientific data—and ask questions about that data. The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, did this through the development of screen-based interactive visualizations of data about marine life.

As more and more scientific research involves looking at large data sets like genome sequences, this presents a challenge to museums: How can we best enable visitors to understand and engage with these datasets? What design features in an interactive visualization help visitors ask and answer questions about the data?

Living Liquid developed three interactive data visualizations for use on a multitouch table:

• Plankton Populations explores the ever-changing population of plankton throughout the world’s oceans, with data from MIT’s Darwin Project.
• Mapping Migrations investigates the migration of the ocean’s top predators, with data from the Tagging of Pacific Predators project.
• Sea of Genes looked at the plankton behaviors through data about which genes the plankton are activating at different times, with data from the Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology.

Project Leadership

Principal Investigator                Jennifer Frazier, Exploratorium  

Co-Principal Investigator          Joyce Ma, Exploratorium 

Co-Principal Investigator          Kwan-Liu Ma, UC Davis Center for Visualization 

This material is based upon work supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the National Science Foundation under grant 1322828. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.