Although his own research in this area began in 1980, the 15° Lab was founded by Dr. Jim Wandersee of LSU in 1996 for the ultimate purpose of helping today's school and college students understand the big ideas in contemporary life sciences, and to enjoy doing so. To this end, he stated that the primary mission of the 15° Laboratory is to:

1. Conduct science education research targeted at improving students' learning of important biological (and especially botanical) concepts, principles, and theories via visual probes, templates, and filters.
2. Encourage his own biology education Ph.D. students to:
1. pursue a doctoral research project within the scope of the Laboratory's mission and
2. to establish their own research programs focused upon particular content domains within the life sciences--linked to visual cognition and the graphic representation of scientific knowledge, with special attention to effects on science learning.

The 15° Laboratory was inspired, in part, by the ideas of the noted science learning theorist and science educator, Professor emeritus Joseph Novak. Novak held joint appointments in Biology and Education at Cornell. Dr. Novak is well-known as the interpreter and elaborator of the Assimilation Theory of Meaningful Learning originally advanced by psychologist David Ausubel. The theory is now known as "Human Constructivism" and is explicated in the new book TEACHING SCIENCE FOR UNDERSTANDING (Academic Press), edited by J. J. Mintzes, J. H. Wandersee, and J. D. Novak. Joel Mintzes is Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Professor Novak was Dr. Wandersee's mentor in his post-doctoral work at Cornell University during the 1980s, and this team continues its writing projects--its latest book is ASSESSING SCIENCE UNDERSTANDING (Academic Press). Team members just finished work on two research chapters published in the new HANDBOOK OF COLLEGE SCIENCE TEACHING (NSTA/Macmillan, 2006).

The work of the Laboratory has also been heavily influenced by the visual thought of the respected graphic theorist, Edward R. Tufte, of Yale University--author of the theoretic 4-volume set: THE VISUAL DISPLAY OF QUANTITATIVE INFORMATION, ENVISIONING INFORMATION, VISUAL EXPLANATIONS, and BEAUTIFUL EVIDENCE. Dr. Wandersee has taken two graphics courses under Professor Tufte. Tufte considers exemplary scientific graphics to be "cognitive art." In this respect, his ideas and those of the Laboratory are quite compatible with the psychological/visual art perspectives of another influential theorist, Robert L. Solso, author of COGNITION and THE VISUAL ARTS. Professor Kathleen M. Fisher (KMF), a biologist in the Department of Biology at San Diego State University, continues to influence the Laboratory's thinking through her biology education books, computer software, and expert advice on representing large knowledge biological knowledge bases in the form of node-based, computerized semantic networks. The Laboratory recognizes the concise-overview design strategy detailed by Stephen Few in his 2006 book: INFORMATION DASHBOARD DESIGN: THE EFFECTIVE VISUAL COMMUNICATION OF DATA. The book, MAPPING BIOLOGY KNOWLEDGE, was co-authored by Dr. Kathleen Fisher, Dr. Jim Wandersee, and Dr. David Moody; it was published by Kluwer Academic Publishers (2000, paperback 2002) and is the only book in existence devoted exclusively to this topic. From this brief synopsis, it should be obvious that the Laboratory does theory-driven research and works primarily at the intersections of (a) visual cognition, (b) knowledge representation, and (c) biology / botanical education. Recently, the Lab's research has been influenced by this visual cognition work: "The Thinking Eye, The Seeing Brain: Explorations in Visual Cognition" by James T. Enns.