Growing Cyberplants for Fun and Learning
Marie Bienkowski, SRI International
Doug Gordin, SRI International
This project is investigating the applicability of Web- or CD-ROM-based visualization environments that integrate 3D perspectives with simulations of growth and change. Our specific focus is on supporting student inquiry into the role of environmental factors in plant morphology. We will characterize existing software that is used by practicing professionals (such as VRML [Virtual Reality Modeling Language] models and browsers, and artificial-life-based simulations with 3D outputs) to determine how it could be integrated into classroom activities. We will identify major alterations that are required for the software to be usable for middle and high school students. Finally, we will suggest complementary real-world activities (e.g., plant growing) that would accompany the computer-based activities.
Digital Weather Station (DWS)
Sasha Barab, Indiana University
Kenneth E. Hay, University of Georgia
Richard Duschl and Kirsten Ellenbogen, Vanderbilt University
Anne Ray, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
This project is exploring how different contexts for the use of visualization tools can help anchor student learning within their personal experience. The Digital Weather Station is an exhibit at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis that supports learner creation of dynamic 3D visualizations of weather. The research program is exploring the abilities of the learner using this tool in a variety of contexts. The project has begun collecting data on dynamic 3D visualization by learners of a broad age range, in order to establish a research base for the field. The project is also designing a prototype video-based macrocontext, The Saving Eric Adventure, which will anchor use of the Digital Weather Station within students' personal experience.
Project website: http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/dws.html
Title: Virtual Reality Solar System (VRSS)
Kenneth E. Hay, University of Georgia
Sasha A. Barab, Indiana University
The VRSS project is part of an experimental astronomy course taught at Indiana University in the spring of 1999. The course was transformed from a didactic (lecture) framework to a constructivist one, in which students engaged in dynamic modeling of the solar system by using virtual reality (VRML) tools. On the basis of research findings from the course (see Barab et al., 1999), the project is developing a prototype learner-centered interface for the VRML editor that reflects the needs of learners within the astronomy domain.
Related paper:
Barab, S., Hay, K. E., Squire, K., Barnett, M., Schmidt, R., Karrigan, K., & Johnson, C. (1999). Virtual Solar
System Project: Developing scientific understanding through model building. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.
Exploring Self-Explanatory Simulators for Middle-School
Science
Kenneth Forbus, Northwestern University
Marcia Linn, University of California, Berkeley
This project is creating a set of activities, based on Forbus' self-explanatory simulators, to complement Linn's successful middle school curriculum for learning about heat and temperature. The activities will allow students to explore aspects of the phenomena that would be too dangerous, expensive, or tedious to do in real time with physical systems. A modified version of the curriculum will be used in the Chicago Public Schools.
Representational Literacy in Science Learning
Rich Lehrer and Leona Schauble, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Andrea A. diSessa, University of California, Berkeley
This project is building on successful work on the MIMS (Modeling in Mathematics and Science) and Boxer projects to develop and explore a family of flexible modeling tools to be used with children in the early elementary years. The design of these tools employs three basic strategies. The first is to make sure students' ideas concerning how things work can be adequately expressed and not be limited by the constraints of the models. The second is to experiment with extremely generic modeling tools, extending earlier work showing that upper elementary school students can use simplified programming to express models about such things as how a ball falls. The third is to design tools to fit the activity context of classrooms where modeling is successful. The goal here is to design tools that address specific difficulties and limits found even when children begin to use modeling effectively.
Explorafrogs: Of Museums, Sustained Scientific Inquiry, and
Deformed Frogs
Philip Bell, University of Washington
Linda Shear, SRI International
Noel Wanner, The Exploratorium
Eric Baumgartner, University of California, Berkeley
This project is a collaboration among members from the SCOPE, WISE, and CILT projects, as well as designers from the Exploratorium, to develop a Web-based curriculum project to be used in conjunction with a major museum exhibit on frogs. The project has redesigned an existing SCOPE controversy curriculum on deformed frogs for an informal workshop setting at the museum and is currently planning pilot workshops to explore how successfully the curricular materials originally designed for a classroom environment can be repurposed for an informal setting. The workshops will also inform research on how to foster sustained scientific inquiry in a museum setting, while coordinating productively with the surrounding exhibit space and accommodating the broad range of visitors to the museum.