NSF Awards: 1713387
Quantum physics governs everything that's very small or very cold, and it has a reputation for being spooky and incomprehensible. We want to change that.
With The Quantum Atlas, we aim to provide an approachable guide to quantum physics for non-experts—anyone looking for an explanation of a quantum concept they read about in an article or heard about on the radio. To that end, we've created images, animations, short podcasts, interactive graphics and written explanations of the most fundamental quantum concepts, and we're planning to add more as The Atlas grows.
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Thank you for checking out our video about The Quantum Atlas! Check out the website here. This project began in 2017 and is aimed at anyone wanting to learn about quantum physics. We are excited to answer any questions you might have. We are currently expanding the content for this project and so please let us know if there is an entry you would like to see in the Atlas. We are also interested in hearing feedback about the usefulness of the Atlas for different audiences, such as high school teachers wanting to introduce quantum concepts into their classrooms or museum educators wanting to design an exhibit around a quantum concept.
Daniel Serrano
I love this project's approach of involving the target audience themselves as builders!
I'm curious to hear about your plans to integrate the feedback asking for a more guided experience, and more content addressing "what do I do with this new knowledge?".
Chris Cesare
Chris Cesare
Director of Communications and Outreach, JQI
Thanks for the comment and encouragement, Daniel!
To address the feedback asking for a more guided experience, we're going to start by packaging some of our entries up into modules. There will be a physics fundamentals module, a quantum computing module, and a module about the quantum nature of light and a module (among others eventually). These will provide different suggestions for how to traverse the Atlas given a particular interest.
The "what do I do with this new knowledge?" question (which I sometimes think of as the "so what?" question) is a tougher nut to crack. To start, we plan to emphasize the applications of quantum physics in some upcoming entries (superconductors will be one). We have also considered adding dedicated sections to our existing entries that clearly lay out the applications and connections to everyday life (where they exist).
Daniel Serrano
patrick honner
Teacher
As someone who would love to better understand quantum mechanics I’m excited to discover your project! After playing around on your website for a few minutes, I can see this is something I’ll be coming back to, and also sharing with my students. I’m wondering how you will assess the effectiveness of your materials, beyond metrics like visits and views. And are their plans to expand beyond basic explainer content to the more technical math and physics at the deeper levels?
Chris Cesare
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Hi Patrick! Thanks so much and we are glad you find the site useful and engaging. This is a great question. During the beginning two years of the project, we did formative evaluation through surveys and focus groups. These were conducted by @Camellia Sanford-Dolly's team (who is listed here with the video as a co-presenter). With the formative evaluation, we were able to set the appropriate level for non-experts and pinpoint challenging topics and possible sources of confusion within the initial entries (superposition, entanglement, and a few others). After the project was in a more advanced stage we did a second survey and additional interviews. The latest survey asked respondents about their experience using the Atlas content as a learning tool. We focused more on attributes such as awareness, appreciation, and interest for most of the evaluation. The feedback has been generally positive but does not dig deep into efficacy for specific entries. The interactives were called out by users as especially useful for learning. The recent interviews also found that teachers are an audience that could use some more tailored content, but this would require additional funding to both design and more thoroughly assess the efficacy of new content. We are currently looking into this and would like to design interactives that could be translated into different learning environments.
Lara Hebert
patrick honner
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Adding on to this to address your other question on more technical math and physics at deeper levels. This is certainly something we have discussed and the project is designed to be modular to allow for deep dives. We are adding some more complex topics this summer and taking suggestions on where to go next. We intend to support and expand the project well beyond the initial NSF funding so yes, we will add more. Let us know what you would like to see and we can try to make it happen :)
patrick honner
patrick honner
Teacher
Thanks for the thorough reply! As a science communicator I see the value in focusing on awareness, appreciation and interest, but your project excites me as a teacher, too, and it's great to hear that you are actively thinking about teachers as an audience for this content.
Camellia Sanford-Dolly
Director of Professional Development
Just to chime in, thus far our survey results have shown us that members of the general public who use The Quantum Atlas that even though the topic is complex, the Atlas made it more accessible. All but one person said that they learned something new about quantum physics. Most identified Quantum Measurement, Entanglement or Superposition as concepts that they learned more about.
We also have some self-report on the pages they visited (with the difference between Quantum vs. Classical mentioned the most). That's not surprising given that the website encourages novices to start their quantum journey with that entry.
The visuals, the layout of the concept entries, and the clear explanations on those pages were mentioned as three core areas that helped make quantum physics more accessible to users.
patrick honner
Cali Anicha
Wonderful resource! I have been fascinated by this science for a long while and benefit very much from your bite-size animations;) I have bookmarked your website and will be visiting again - and sharing with my public school educator colleagues!
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Thanks, Cali! That's great to hear. Feel free to reach out to us if you have questions or ideas on what we can add as you visit the site. :)
Alexander Rudolph
Professor
This project is very exciting and definitely fills a need in science education. I liked the presentation of some of the graphics and interactives and wish you had shown more of them. In future videos, you might consider cutting to voiceover more often to highlight the content relative to the "talking heads". Also, it would be nice if you had walked the audience through one short module or graphic to make the idea of the Atlas more concrete. Overall, though, it was a good video presenting a great idea! Thank you for your work.
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Thanks, Alexander! That's a great suggestion that we can try for next time.
Erica Wortham
This is wonderful, can't wait to explore the Atlas! Wonderful model for communication and accessibility.
Chris Cesare
Director of Communications and Outreach, JQI
Thanks for the kind words, Erica. It means a lot to us.
Rebecca Vieyra
Associate Director of Global Initiatives
Dear team,
Wow! As a prior physics teacher, this is something I would definitely have used in my own teaching!!! Now, as a staff member at PhET Interactive Simulations, I'm also wondering if there's anything we can do to collaborate on really bringing quantum content to the forefront and thinking about structuring pedagogical supports to help teachers use these resources in an effective way.
Chris Cesare
Director of Communications and Outreach, JQI
Thanks, Rebecca! We've played with many of the PhET simulations! I think both Emily Edwards (Co-PI) and I would be very interested in figuring out ways to collaborate.
To answer your questions: Beyond social media, which we're admittedly pretty bad at, we've presented about the Atlas at a handful of workshops and share it all the time by word of mouth. One of the things that I've been doing for a while now is including links to relevant Atlas entries in science news stories that go out on phys.org or EurekAlert (and making the communications folks in my circles aware that they can do the same). We also promoted it during a World Quantum Day Ask Me Anything on Reddit (which gave us our biggest traffic spike ever).
As for the demographics of visitors, we don't know much about their occupation beyond word of mouth (we've had students and museum exhibit designers, among others, reach out directly). In terms of countries, over the last 30 days about 40% of our traffic is from the US; all other countries are below 10% of the traffic, and India has the second spot with about 8%.
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Hi Rebecca, I'll second Chris' comment that we are definitely interested in connecting about collaboration. This last year we have definitely put more effort into getting people and organizations in our networks aware of the Atlas (and linking to it). There is more interest in it now especially among teachers as you said. Let's connect and talk more about this. Thanks again for reaching out and commenting.
Camellia Sanford-Dolly
Director of Professional Development
Rebecca,
As part of the evaluation, my team also interviewed science educators (mostly high school physics and computer science teachers) and science communicators (who ranged from journalists, game developers, afterschool or museum program staff, and university professors doing science outreach). The two groups saw the Media Gallery as a key resource and potential place to expand by sharing out and linking to other online materials. There definitely seemed to be a desire amongst these groups to share out collective knowledge and curricula (with several citing PhET as one of the resources that they typically use).
Rebecca Vieyra
Associate Director of Global Initiatives
Thanks for everyone's responses! Some other things that come to mind for potential dissemination venues include QuarkNet (https://quarknet.org/), AAPT's quantum initiatives (https://quantumforall.org/), and Perimeter Institute (https://perimeterinstitute.ca/). I'm happy to connect if you drop me an e-mail at rebecca.vieyra@colorado.edu, and we can talk through potential ways to work together.
Fran Agnone
I love the multiple modalities you use to break down these complex projects. On the website I could play around in a simulation, listen to someone explain a concept, watch an animation, look at a graphic/cartoon, or read more about it. It really is so much more than a glossary! Thanks for demonstrating such a thoughtful way to communicate science. I definitely see potential in my work to mirror this approach in other science topics for educators and youth who are tackling STEM concepts. I will 100% reference your materials the next time quantum physics comes to the table.
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Thanks so much, Fran!
Dennis Kleinman
The Quantum Atlas is really outstanding. As an educational media consultant who specializes in integrating media into the science learning experience, I totally appreciated the way you have visualized and 'humanized' quantum in a way that even a physics piker like me could grasp. I spent quite a bit of time on your site and I learned a ton thanks to the wonderfully considered graphics combined with text that is clear, concise and, most of all, approachable. My team and I have also been focused developing creative ways to give students entree to a challenging scientific arena, in our case BioFabrication. If you get a chance, we'd love to get your take: Building a Strong Workforce Alliance for Biofabrication & Bioengineering through K-12 Education
Dennis Kleinman
Also, have a look at our STEM For All presentation:
https://stemforall2022.videohall.com/presentations/2489
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Thanks, Dennis! It is great to hear that the Atlas worked for you. I will definitely check out your project. It sounds like it shares common themes with a different project I work on around developing the quantum information science workforce.
Amy Robertson
I'm so glad to know about this resource! I just shared your video with my brother, who's expressed a lot of interest in QM recently. Something I'm curious about: I hear you saying you want folks to get to share in the understanding of quantum mechanics, as a fundamental theory about the universe. (And as someone for whom quantum was a favorite class in graduate school, I resonate with this a lot.) Curious as to what you expect folks who learn from you to *do* with their understandings...
Chris Cesare
Director of Communications and Outreach, JQI
Thanks, Amy!
One of my personal goals for the project is to put something out there that curious people can find and learn something from. I don't have a strong motive beyond that. From this perspective, I see the Atlas as ratcheting up the accuracy and sophistication of the coverage that quantum usually gets (at least for general audiences). I really want people to feel like they can approach quantum physics and not feel hopelessly lost. I want them to visit the Atlas and come away with some confidence that they've followed the thread.
The project certainly grew up in (and now fits squarely inside) a climate of increased interest in the future quantum workforce. My Co-PI Emily Edwards can offer more specifics on how the Atlas fits in with that constellation of things (K-12 education, undergraduate education, post-bac and professional education), but in our wildest dreams maybe the Atlas serves as a gateway into a career for some folks who are quantum curious.
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Well said, Chris. I agree completely. Unfortunately, quantum physics has this reputation for being mystical and possibly only understood by a few people who are in the "genius" category. I think this second element is pretty common to other science topics that appear in Hollywood movies and were simultaneously developing in the 20th century. We think this reputation creates a lot of artificial barriers. One of our missions as a team has been to help people get to know the topic in a friendly way. We hope people walk away feeling like they can take the next step to learn more or have confidence to break into similarly complex topics.
With the increased investment in quantum science both in the private and public sectors we are seeing lots of increased interest from teachers. I think that there are some interesting research questions around how users bridge from this informal resource into something more in-depth about the larger field of quantum information science and engineering. From the design perspective and the learner side there are a lot of open questions for quantum information science education given that there is very little out there in terms of formal curricula below the upper-division undergraduate curriculum at selected institutions.
Barbara Hopkins
Wow…loved this resource and that the students played a big role in how to best communicate about it. I really appreciate the “Cross-Cutting Concepts” (Framework on Science Education) and believe the more opportunity students have with exposure to current science, the greater their ability to see the patterns, cause and effects, scale, etc. and continue to make sense of it! I hope to share this with Physics teachers in NH!
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Thanks, Barbara!
Lauren Bauman
Very cool! I'm excited to explore Atlas more and I really enjoyed the visuals on the website. I'm curious how you decide on entries. Is it something that you come up based on covering basic principles? Or based on feedback/requests from users? Thank you for sharing your work!
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Hi Lauren,
Thanks so much! We started with basic principles of quantum mechanics and recently we have gotten a few requests for more applied topics. The feedback has come from a mix of users, colleagues, and interviews. If you have a request, let us know :)
Jamie Bell
Thank you for sharing this project! I've been interested in science communication of quantum physics since I first met Julian Bobroff at an American Physical Society conference a decade ago. Maybe you've come across his writing or website in the process of researching this work? Thanks also for featuring the project evaluator in the video. Wondering what more you might have learned about the non-expert informal adult learners for whom the Atlas was designed?
Emily Edwards
Executive Director, IQUIST
Hi Jamie,
Thanks so much for taking a look. Yes we are familiar with (and enjoy!) the quantum made simple project. Regarding evaluation, we did a large quantum interest survey at the start of the project and last year. We are in the process of writing up the data for these surveys. At a high level, we learned that the population surveyed was mediumly interested in quantum science but had very little familiarity with it outside of a few concepts like photons. The survey also probed a little about respondents preferences for informal science learning resources and media types. Camellia can comment in further detail.