Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Debuts Dynamic Science Teaching Tool

PITTSBURGH, April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- High school and undergraduate
students now have a ringside seat to watch atoms and molecules in super-slow
motion and vivid color, as they jostle and bump each other within the cozy
environs of a human cell or a beaker on a lab bench. In "Big Numbers in Small
Spaces: Simulating Atoms, Molecules and Brownian Motion," students are invited
to consider how many molecules are in a single drop of water, or a single
cell, and then to fly in and find out.

"Big Numbers" is the newest and most elegantly produced instructional movie
from CMIST (see·mist, Computational Modules in Science Teaching), an
educational outreach program of the National Resource for Biomedical
Supercomputing (NRBSC) at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC).

Joel Stiles, NRBSC director and associate professor of biological sciences at
Carnegie Mellon University, will introduce the new ten-and-a-half-minute CMIST
movie at the National Science Bowl Finals Competition in Washington, DC on May
2. "To address the challenge of science learning for the video-gaming,
tech-savvy, multi-tasking students of today," says Stiles, "CMIST offers
highly realistic and visually appealing content in easily usable form."

In "Big Numbers," students "see" carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms in water
and glucose molecules. They watch red-blood cells passing through a vessel
while discovering that each of these cells can hold about three-trillion water
molecules. They see supercomputer simulations of realistic atomic sizes,
covalent bonds, hydrogen bonds, and other details of molecular structure and
motion (molecular dynamics), before time and space leap ahead to illustrate
Brownian movements of molecules on cellular and human scales.

To view "Big Numbers" go here: http://www.nrbsc.org/cmist

Unlike many other animated teaching tools, CMIST movies are produced with
highly realistic modeling and simulation software, such as MCell and DReAMM,
programs co-authored by Stiles and used for realistic cell modeling in many
research laboratories around the world. CMIST materials extrapolate from and
bring life to classic textbook pictures and concepts. They seamlessly
integrate content from biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and
computational science, and are distributed online and as ready-to-use DVDs.

Led by Stiles, the CMIST production team is a unique assemblage of talents,
including simulation and visualization specialist Jacob Czech, e-learning and
multimedia designer Jenda Domaracki, education outreach specialist Pallavi
Ishwad (a former high-school biology teacher and Ph.D. scientist), and student
composer Jason Mlynek from the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University.
"Producing high-quality animations from realistic simulations is a huge team
effort," says Stiles, "much like producing a short Hollywood film." On July
9, the CMIST team will introduce "Big Numbers" to regional high school science
teachers at a workshop hosted by the NRBSC.

CMIST's pilot module, "Molecular Transport in Cells," was introduced in 2008
and illustrates important principles of osmosis and diffusion with 3D
examples. It has been presented to over 500 multi-disciplinary educators at
the state and national level and has been enthusiastically received and
incorporated in classroom use in the Pittsburgh area.

CMIST is jointly supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National
Science Foundation's TeraGrid program, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

About PSC:
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon
University and the University of Pittsburgh together with Westinghouse
Electric Company. Established in 1986, PSC is supported by several federal
agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and private industry, and is a
resource provider in the National Science Foundation TeraGrid program.

SOURCE Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

Michael Schneider, schneider@psc.edu, +1-412-268-4960, or Shandra Williams,
shandraw@psc.edu, +1-412-268-4960, both of Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center