June 1996 — Features
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Universal Access to Science Study via Internet
Collaborations
Many types of collaborative projects are possible by using the Internet. It is sometimes hard for teachers to focus on applications that have significance beyond casual social relations. In many cases, students will exchange information with students at other schools as part of a "pen-pal" exchange. There is a great deal of novelty and excitement in these exchanges since students using the World Wide Web can not only trade written messages but images and voice recordings as well.
We encourage teachers and students to utilize this technology for science education in which the information obtained plays a unique and important role. In evaluating this use of the technology we ask teachers to use the criteria of whether the information obtained from the remote site has content that they could not obtain locally or if the remote site has physical conditions of particular interest. Depending on the issues being studied, latitude, altitude, air quality, ecosystem, etc. are all variables that can underpin useful collaborations.
Example 1: Pond Water
http://njnie.dl.stevens-tech.edu/curriculum/water.html
One collaboration that can make good use of Internet technology involves study of pond water. This has been a classic activity for elementary school science students for many years. Students gather samples from a local pond and examine the organisms they find with microscopes. They can also examine the inflow and outflow of the pond, as well as the oxygen content and chemical characteristics of the water. All of these measurements and observations help students understand their local ecology.
Using the Internet, students share their observations with peers living in quite different parts of the world. Students are fascinated to discover the number of similarities that exist. Finding the same microorganisms at locations separated by almost 10,000 miles is astonishing to students who trade information between New Jersey and Japan. Differences are found as students who live in regions with different levels of acid rain or at different altitudes, for example, compare data.
In the context of data comparisons, "pen-pal" exchanges take place and students learn about the cultures and daily life of various societies. We encourage and nurture these exchanges, but our first objective is to engage students in interesting and informative science study.
The overall impact of this type of curriculum pursuit is to not only add to the body of knowledge of students, and to involve them in active independent study, but to do so in a context that broadens their horizons and which motivates greater interest in and involvement with the experience of learning.
