June 1996 — Features
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Universal Access to Science Study via Internet
Our emphasis is on science education for pre-high school science students. This is an arena of American education that has included a great deal of qualitative study and too much rote learning. Compounding the problems of K-8 science study is the simple fact that most teachers at that level have had limited science education themselves.
Since only about 20% of America's high school graduates have taken a course in physics (and that group includes pre- science, pre-engineering and pre-medical students), the likelihood that an elementary school teacher has taken a high school physics course is quite small. The possibility that they have gone on to a physics course in college is even lower. Hence, understanding of the physical aspects of nature and their quantitative relationships are not usually part of the background of K-8 school teachers.
Another reason for emphasizing science study that includes data is that many schools, particularly in inner cities, lack adequate laboratory facilities. By bringing interesting, significant and timely information into the learning experience of inner-city students, technology is providing cost-effective enrichment that would not be possible through other strategies.
Because most K-8 teachers are not science specialists, Internet-based science resources need to be elaborated to make topics accessible to a broad community of teachers. Many topics can be structured such that they can be pursued directly by students. This is a great potential boon to home schooling programs and it also makes it possible for students who attend schools to engage in activities outside of class that are more interesting, original and engaging than traditional "homework."
Our data-centered approach deals with information that is available to student learners through three different sources:
- Data developed by other students as part of collaborative projects;
- Data available from public domain databases such as those created by NASA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Geological Survey, etc.; and
- Data that comes directly from research laboratories.
We have been actively promoting each of these sources and, in what follows, provide two examples from each category. All six of these science educational activities that can be pursued via the use of the Internet are original materials that were developed as part of our New Jersey Networking Infrastructure in Education (NJNIE) project. Readers can find all of the examples discussed here on our NJNIE Web site at: http://k12science.stevens-tech.edu/ or http://njnie.dl.stevens-tech.edu/
