Delivered at 2008 Boston Harbor Islands Science Symposium.
Making data easily accessible and understandable is essential for public outreach and education. A database interface written in Mathematica programming language allows customizable navigation of the data from the Boston Harbor Islands All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI). It allows the user to combine geographic information, taxonomic data, and images into a single display. The interface can also create plots and graphs of the data. This ability to create and examine customized data sets and calculate real-time data will allow users to explore data in many different ways.
An expanded interface could be used in classrooms to allow student driven exploration of the ATBI program. Curriculum developed using ATBI data and this interface could be used to teach fundamental skills of inquiry and hypothesis testing in the sciences.
