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Volume 1, Issue 4 ISSN
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Moore, C. J., & Huber,R. (2001). Internet tools
for facilitating inquiry. Contemporary Issues in Technology and
Teacher Education [Online serial] , 1 (4) .
Available:
http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss4/currentissues/science/article1.htm
Internet Tools for Facilitating Inquiry
CHRISTOPHER J.
MOORE
St. Mary Middle School
RICHARD
HUBER
University of North Carolina Wilmington
Although the science education community values
inquiry-based science instruction, the goal remains illusive. In
the absence of significant changes designed to provide teachers
with better support for inquiry teaching, true inquiry-based
instruction is probably not a realistic option for many science
teachers (National Research Council [NRC], 1996), especially novice
teachers (Crawford, 1999; Huber & Moore, 2001a; NRC, 1996;
Wong, 1998; Wong & Wong, 1998). Viable support for inquiry
teaching can come in many forms, all of which are aptly dubbed as
pathways to reform by the National Science Education
Standards (NRC, 1996). The reforms called for in the
Standards focus on the changes required to ensure excellent
inquiry-based K-12 science instruction for all students. Viable
pathways to such reforms include a variety of options ranging from
content-based plans (e.g., Crawford, 1998; Matthews, 1998), to
general process-oriented strategies (Greene, 1998; Huber &
Moore, 2001a; Liem, 1987).
New technologies may also offer a pathway to reform
(NRC, 1996), and this pathway certainly includes better use of the
Internet (Bodzin & Park, 1999; Huber & Harriett, 1998;
Huber & Moore, 2001b; Moore & Huber, 2001; Warlick, 1998;
Watson, 1999). Interactive educational Internet utilities are a
promising resource not receiving the attention they deserve. This
article considers possible roles for such utilities as resources
offering students engaging invitations to inquiry while
simultaneously mitigating many of the traditional barriers to
inquiry, which include the following:
-
Constraints of time, supplies, and equipment.
-
Difficulties in material and classroom
management.
-
Distractions of experimental noise (which can be
very disruptive to children conducting hands-on science
explorations).
-
Assessment practices that drive instruction away
from inquiry.
This article argues that interactive Internet
resources provide effective means for teaching inquiry-based
science at the upper-elementary through introductory college
levels. A case is presented for promoting more extensive use of
inquiry Internet resources in grades 4-14 science instruction and
in pre- and in-service science teacher professional development
programs.
Inquiry-Based Science Instruction
Defined
No universally accepted concise definition of the
term inquiry-based science instruction exists, but there is broad
general consensus regarding the fundamental nature and value of
inquiry-based instruction. Similar positions have been articulated
by the National Science Teachers Association ([NSTA] 1990, 1998),
the American Association for the Advancement of Science ([AAAS]
1993, Rutherford & Ahlegren, 1990), and the (NRC, 1996). The
nature of inquiry-based instruction is perhaps most clearly
described in the vision of the National Science Education
Standards . As envisioned in the Standards ,
inquiry-based teachers function as facilitators and supporters of
student learning rather than as disseminators of knowledge. The
vision of the Standards is one of dynamic learning
communities working within enriched learning environments supported
by an educational system that has been overhauled to provide the
support those communities will need. Within this setting, the
Standards recognized the central and iterative roles of
mathematics and technology in both scientific work and science
instruction. The response to the Standards has been strong
and supportive (Bereiter, Scardamalia, Cassells, & Hewitt,
1997; Bybee 1995; Bybee & Champagne 1995; Collins, 1997; Huber
& Moore, 2001a; Lederman & Niess, 1998; Loucks-Horsley,
1998; Mergendoller, 1997; Moore & Huber, 2001; Pratt, 1995;
Riechard, 1995; Zeidler, 1998).
Inquiry-Based Science Presents Science
Content Within
Meaningful Contexts
The Standards stress that excellent teachers
of inquiry-based science instruction present science content within
a contextual framework to facilitate children in developing
understandings about the nature, philosophy, history, and relevance
of science. This context emphasizes the connections among science
content and (a) the history, philosophy, and nature of science; (b)
the content of other disciplines, especially mathematics and
technology; (c) issues of importance to the world at large, and (d)
issues important in the daily lives of students. The
Standards discussed this dimension of inquiry in terms of
the enacted curriculum which reflects a blending and balancing of
planned learning objectives, student interests, and the daily life
of the classroom, which includes content from other disciplines
extensively. Thus, as emphasized by Martin (2000), an integrated
curriculum is common in inquiry-based science instruction, due to
the constructivist underpinnings of the pedagogy.
Inquiry-Based Science Emphasizes
Experiential Learning and
Problem Solving
In the inquiry-based classroom, students are
actively engaged in cooperative, "hands-on and minds-on" learning
activities that emphasize problem solving and creative thinking.
Through these experiences, curriculum goals are met as students
construct meaningful, broadly applicable, well-structured,
information-rich knowledge, skills, and affective domain
attributes. The Standards discussed hands-on activities in
terms of full- and partial inquiries. The Standards defined
full inquiries as activities consisting of the follwing steps, with
partial inquiries consisting of some subset of the steps:
-
Students pose a question that is congruent with planned
learning objectives and that can be meaningfully explored within
the constraints of the classroom.
-
Students design an investigation directed towards answering
that question.
-
Students carry out the investigation, gathering the applicable
data in the process.
-
Students interpret and document their findings.
-
Students publish or present their findings in an open
forum.
Throughout the process of facilitating the inquiry,
the teacher uses questioning strategies extensively to guide and
direct students' ideas towards success and away from frustration
(NRC, 1996, especially pp. 32-37). For example, at the beginning of
the process the teacher must direct students towards a
question that can be answered with the materials at hand and that
invites students into a productive inquiry. Elstgeest (1985)
provided an excellent discussion of how science teachers can
facilitate students in articulating such questions, which he called
productive questions. As described by Elstgeest,
A good [productive] question is a stimulating
question which is an invitation to a closer look, a new experiment,
or a fresh exercise. The right question leads to where the answer
can be found: the real objects or events under study where the
answer can be found (37).
As this statement implies, to be productive a
question must be sufficiently congruent with planned objectives to
fit within the enacted curriculum. Such a fit is necessary because
inquiry is used to teach other content, not merely for its own sake
(NRC, 1996). Once a productive question has been posed, additional
questioning and brainstorming activities can be used to facilitate
students' planning of an experiment (Huber & Moore, 2001a).
Questioning in the latter stages of the inquiry directs students to
reflect upon what they have done and what they have learned (Huber
& Moore, 2001a, Mathews, 1998; NRC, 1996).
Inquiry-Based Science Requires Authentic
Assessment
Finally, the model of inquiry-based science
envisioned in the National Science Education Standards
recognizes that teaching and assessment are interdependent.
Assessment practices and curriculum content drive each other. Thus,
approaches to assessment emphasizing the memorization of isolated
facts work against inquiry-based instruction (NRC, 1996; Huber
& Moore, 2000; Huber & Moore, in press). Some of the
Internet resources discussed in this article offer substantial
promise as a base for authentic inquiry-based science
assessment.
What the Internet Has to Offer
What are the characteristics of a good
inquiry-based science inquiry Internet site? Among the Internet
sites supporting science instruction, two overlapping categories of
sites stand out as especially promising for promoting inquiry-based
science instruction. The first of these categories consists of
Internet sites that, in essence, place virtually millions of
dollars worth of scientific equipment or other research resources
within a few mouse clicks of the science classroom. These
applications place an array of virtual equipment and
simulated resources within student control.
The second category allows students to access and
interact with large educationally relevant data sets. The best of
these data set sites also provide impressive interactive data
visualization tools, which facilitate students in conducting
inquiries using the data. Using resources from these two sets of
sites, students can actively engage in inquiry-based explorations
on topics ranging from genetics to ecology to Newton's laws of
motion.
When using these Internet applications, students
are not merely looking up facts. These resources are designed to
facilitate students in conducting full and partial inquiries. The
Internet resources reviewed in this article are particularly
powerful in facilitating such inquiries because they transcend many
classroom limitations and, in so doing, increase the range of
productive questions available to students. For example, using
ExploreScience.Com to explore the mechanics of pendulums renders
the question, What would happen if I tried this on the moon? into a
question that can be productively explored and answered with the
resources at hand.
These Internet resources are all excellent tools
for facilitating students in exploring the natural universe around
them, either by means of direct observation of simulated events or
through open-ended explorations of meaningfully displayed authentic
scientific data. The resources are well suited to facilitating
students in framing their own research questions, as well as
facilitating their efforts to design and carry out online
explorations directed toward answering those questions. Finally,
some of these Internet resources are linked to educational Internet
sites containing features that can be used to facilitate students
in publishing their research.
Inquiry Internet Sites Providing Access to
Equipment and Resources
The Internet sites included in this category allow
students to access and then interact with a wide variety of
simulated scientific equipment. Often the sites allow students to
interact with equipment, which, in the real world, would be
prohibitively expensive or otherwise inaccessible to students.
These include x-ray machines and oscilloscopes. Some of these tools
go far beyond the constraints of real-world equipment and settings.
For example, using simulations available at http://ExploreScience.com ,
students can (a) explore Newton's laws of motion on a friction-free
air track; (b) test, in a matter of seconds, predictions about
occurrences of recessive traits emerging over the course of
multiple generations of mice, and (c) conduct experiments in which
they can manipulate the force of gravity (e.g., the mass of a
planet). Students can also explore off world phenomenon at any
number of NASA sites (see http://questdb.arc.nasa.gov/lesson_search.htm#search
for a good search engine of NASA education sites).
Exemplary Inquiry Internet Sites Providing
Access to Equipment and Research Settings
Internet sites providing especially valuable and/or
promising tools for conducting simulations include http://ExploreScience.Com ,
Nova Hot Science ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hotscience/
), and Soundry, included in a library of over 4000 educational sits
at http://www.thinkquest.org/library/index.html
.
ExploreScience.com provides about four dozen
interactive applications, most of which are appropriate for middle
school through introductory college grades. The site includes tools
that can be used to facilitate inquiry in the following areas:
-
mechanics and astronomy, (principles of velocity,
acceleration, inertia, etc.);
-
wave motion;
-
electricity and magnetism;
-
optics (bending light, color addition and
subtraction); and
-
life sciences (vision, genetics, medical imaging
technologies).
Students can explore the relative gravitational
forces of planets in our solar system at http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/puzzles/weight.asp
. The Soundry site
( http://www.thinkquest.org/library/index.html
) allows students to turn their computer monitor into an
oscilloscope and then manipulate the appearance of the graphed
sound wave and hear how the manipulations change the quality of the
sound.
Nova Hot Science ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hotscience/
) provides an extensive array of interactive Internet applications,
all of which represent extensions of science programs that have
aired on the Public Broadcasting System television program, NOVA.
The scope and organization of activities available on this site is
broad, with many of the activities being suitable for upper
elementary through middle school grades. While some of the
resources accessible from this site are more suitable to classroom
application than others, the site provides a number of impressive
activities including the following:
-
Lunar puzzles provides a useful tool for helping
students build sound mental constructs of the relative motion of
the Earth, moon, and sun.
-
Skydive from the Stratosphere is an excellent tool
for exploring the structure of Earth's atmosphere.
-
Move a Moai invites students to engage in a
problem solving activity in which they must balance conflicting
tradeoffs of resource management as they attempt to move a Moai
stone statue across Easter Island.
The Soundry site at ThinkQuest ( http://www.thinkquest.org/library/index.html
) is an example of one of the several thousand educational sites
developed by teachers and students contained within the Thinkquest
library of Internet sites. Soundry includes a variety of utilities
for learning about the physics of sound and how humans perceive
sound, including interactive applets (small programs embedded on a
web page) that allow students to see and manipulate sound waves.
Students can, for example, simulate an oscilloscope on their
computer screen, manipulate the shape of the wave, and hear the
resulting changes in the quality of the sound corresponding to the
visual wave representation. Students can also interactively explore
various wave actions, such as wave interference and the Doppler
effect. This site includes other educational information on sound,
such as an illustrated encyclopedic entry on the human ear.
Using Sites That Provide Access to Equipment
and Resources for Teaching
Literature on the important role of discrepant
events in inquiry-based science instruction suggests that
interactive Internet applications, such as those described above,
should only be used in lieu of actual hands-on activities with
caution. In both traditional hands-on instruction and inquiry-based
science classrooms, students are shown (or allowed to discover)
counter-intuitive observations discrepant events as a stimulating
means of introducing a hands-on activity (Annenberg/CPB Math and
Science Project, 1995, Huber & Moore, 2001a, Chiappetta, 1997;
Edwards, 1997; Elstgeest, 1985; Liem, 1987; Martin, 2000). However,
in the inquiry-based classroom, discrepant events are not intended
to merely stimulate interest, but to challenge students'
preexisting misconceptions (Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project,
1995; Huber & Moore, 2001a). For example, through simple verbal
drill most students may easily memorize the fact that
red light + green light + blue light = white
light.
However, when merely learned by rote, discrepant facts such as
this are most likely to be memorized without any meaningful
comprehension or internalization of the underlying concepts. Thus,
it is preferable that students experiment with stage lighting,
flashlights with colored cellophane filters, or some comparable
manipulative in order to discover, firsthand, the unexpected colors
that emerge when pools of filtered light are overlapped. In a
similar manner, concepts such as conservation of energy and matter
are easier for children to parrot than to truly comprehend or, for
that matter, to believe (Annenberg/CPB, 1995; Harlen, 1985). In
inquiry-based science, real world discrepant events play an
important role in challenging students to reconsider their
preestablished views of how the universe works, and, in so doing,
to make room in their mental frameworks for alternative
explanations, which are more congruous with established scientific
views. In other words, discrepant events are used to create the
cognitive dissonance important in Piaget's model of learning
(Martin, 2000). At this time, there is limited information about
how effectively simulations of discrepant events will inspire
children to question their pre-existing beliefs, and it is
certainly possible that they will respond by questioning the
validity of the simulation instead. Thus, students should be
engaged in real-world hands-on discovery of discrepant events as
much as is possible and practical.
Although it appears best to ground hands-on
explorations in the direct and personal study of real-world
phenomena, there is no reason to believe that all explorations need
to occur in the real world. Additionally, the prospect of using
simulated events gains appeal in light of consideration of the ease
with which repeated and varied practices of experiments involving
the events can be conducted. For example, students could begin by
learning the basic principles of additive colors using flashlights
and colored filters to observe the counterintuitive results that
occur through the blending of colored lights. Once the basic
principles of additive colors are grasped, the students could move
on to explore and review the mixing of light in the virtual world
of ExploreScience.Com, where they can work more efficiently.
In a similar manner, students may be introduced to
the process of measuring density using real-world balances and
graduated cylinders, and then practice using those tools and
techniques in the virtual world of ExploreScience.Com's density
laboratory. In both of these examples, the most obvious advantage
of the computer is to simplify material management and increase
opportunities for student exploration.
The value simplifying material management and other
aspects of hands-on explorations, by computer simulations or other
means, should not be underestimated (Huber & Moore, 2001a;
Wong, 1998; Wong & Wong, 1998). For example, consider the case
of a hands-on exercise in measuring density in a class of 30
students limited by the resource of six balances and a 55-minute
class period. In this scenario, the teacher might, reasonably,
divide the class into six cooperative groups of five students each
and supply each group with a number of objects to be evaluated, a
graduated cylinder, a drainage container, and a balance. The
students should measure the mass of each object using the balance
and also measure its volume through water displacement, using the
graduated cylinder. Students would then divide the mass by the
volume to compute the density of the object. The exercise might
include instructions to predict densities and compare predictions
with measurements and to graph the results, along with other
activities designed to get the students thinking and communicating
about what they are doing.
Typically, some portion of every class period must
be devoted to administrative matters (e.g., attendance, collecting
and assigning homework, intercom interruptions, etc.).
Additionally, time must be allotted for giving instructions,
checking for understanding, and repeating all or portions of the
instructions. Finally, some class time must be devoted to setup and
cleanup activities. Given this scenario, it is likely that some of
the less proficient groups might complete only a few tests.
Further, if the students within each group take turns performing
tasks, some students might not even have the opportunity to perform
all of the parts of a single test.
By contrast, working individually or with a
partner, a student working in ExploreScience.Com's density lab
could complete several tests in 5 or 10 minutes. Similar
comparisons could be made for numerous activities. Thus, it seems
likely that a good balance of cooperative hands-on, real-world
explorations and time working with the online simulations would be
ideal in many cases. Such an approach provides the power of
authentic real-world discovery of discrepant events with the power
of repeated spaced practice facilitated by the Internet
application.
The computer simulations available on the Internet
can also be used to extend the explorations beyond those practical
within the classroom under even the best of conditions. As noted
previously, examples of such extensions include (a) simulated
physics activities involving gravitational forces different from
those on Earth (see, Orbit Simulator, Black Hole, and Simple
Harmonic Motion at ExploreScience.Com), (b) genetics experiments
involving artificial selection (see Mouse Genetics at
ExploreScience.Com and Engineer a Crop at Nova Hot Science), and
(c) explorations of Newton's laws of motion on a friction-free air
track (see Air Track at ExploreScience.Com).
Using Sites That Provide Access to Equipment
and Resources for Assessment
The tools discussed in this section may play an
important role in assessing student learning, especially given the
explosion in standardized and accountability testing currently
impacting curriculum development and teaching practice in America's
schools. To a substantial degree, standardized testing is growing
as a driving force in establishing curriculum goals and methods
(Brandt, 1989; CNN, 1999; Huber & Moore, 1999; Jones, Jones,
Hardin, Chapman, Yarbrough, & Davis, 1999; Kunen, 1997; Neil,
1998; Shapiro, 1998). As aptly stated in one popular press
publication, high stakes accountability testing has become the
latest silver bullet designed to cure all that ails public
education (Kunen, 1997). Unfortunately, that which is easy to test
is not necessarily that which is important to learn, especially in
the sciences. Standardized testing typically emphasizes the
memorization of objective facts, rather that the development of
rich structured knowledge and upper-level thinking skills (Huber
& Moore, 1999; Jones et al., 1999; NRC, 1996). Thus, in the
absence of more authentic assessment strategies than those that are
typically employed in standardized testing, the contemporary wave
of political support for educational reform through standardized
testing can be expected to push science education practices away
from inquiry-based instruction (Huber & Moore, 2000).
In the virtual world however, what is important to
learn is not necessarily difficult to assess. For example,
assessment of students' learning about density could begin with
online activities requiring students to click and drag objects onto
displays of balances and graduated cylinders. Students would then
be required to read data from the online measurements of the
virtual objects and perform calculations of the objects' densities.
Scoring could be based not merely on students' obtaining correct
answers but performing correct processes, as monitored through a
computer utility that tracks their actions in performing the online
tasks.
These technologies can be used for formative
assessments with built-in tutorials, as well. It is a relatively
straightforward task to program a computer to recognize common
errors on a test and direct users who make those errors to relevant
tutorial information. After walking the user through the selected
tutorial, the program can then reassess and redirect the student
(either to additional tutorials or forward to the next assessment
item). Both ExploreScience.Com and, especially, Nova Hot Science
have a number of activities presenting users with online puzzles,
challenges, and quizzes that provide examples of starting points
for developing such assessment tools.
Inquiry Internet Sites Providing Access to
Large Data Sets
In addition to sites that facilitate
experimentation using virtual resources, a number of Internet sites
use applets to give students access to large sets of authentic
scientific data along with powerful tools for displaying and
exploring that data. Some of these data visualization tools render
pictorial representations, while others present more abstract
representations, such as data maps and graphs. These images go far
beyond those possible in traditional media. For example, two of the
sites discussed here present animated line/color-gradient graphs
that change in response to user input.
Exemplary Internet Sites Providing Access to
Large Data Sets
Among the Internet sites providing animated
graphical displays of quantitative information are Water on the
Web, ( http://wow.nrri.umn.edu/wow/index.html
) and River Run, ( http://www.uncwil.edu/riverrun/
) both of which allow students to explore and interact with large
sets of data pertaining to the ecology of specific bodies of water.
The River Run site also includes interactive geographical data
maps. A third site discussed here, Visible Human ( http://www.dhpc.adelaide.edu.au/projects/vishuman2/
) allows students to explore a model of the human body compiled
from a large set of medical imaging data.
Water on the Web (WOW) ( http://wow.nrri.umn.edu/wow/index.html
) provides water quality data collected from remote underwater
sampling stations placed in five Minnesota lakes, which
continuously sample and analyze water from different depths in the
lakes. Data Visualization Tools, accessible from the WOW web site,
allow students to see and explore relationships among the data
points that would probably be lost to them were the data merely
displayed as matrixes of numbers. Importantly, students can, with a
few points and clicks, change parameters defining the dynamic
graphic displays. Thus, the utilities provide simple and engaging
mediums for open exploration and powerful effective tools for
hypothesis testing. For example, in an inquiry-based classroom a
teacher might direct students to use the color mapper data
visualization tool to explore lake stratifications. Under this
scenario, the teacher might have students define the parameters so
that water temperature is color-graphed and dissolved oxygen is
shown with a line graph, as shown in Figure 1 (note that different
students could be looking at data from various lakes and at various
time frames in this example). Through the teacher-guided inquiry,
students should quickly discover how sharp gradients in temperature
and dissolved oxygen define the epilimnion strata at the surface of
lakes. Students could then form hypotheses of how other variables
might behave around this boundary and, ultimately, change system
settings, and run animations to test their hypotheses.
Figure
1. Example of water temperature and dissolved oxygen
stratification from Water on the Web .
Data visualization tools within WOW are also well
suited for presenting clear pictures of various complex phenomena
that occur within lake ecosystems. For example, because water is at
its densest at 4C, in a deep lake the water at the bottom of the
lake remains at 4C year round. Consequently, as surface waters cool
to this temperature in the autumn and warm in the spring, the
waters of a deep lake can dynamically turn over. The color mapper
tool is an ideal resource for exploring and displaying the impacts
of this dynamic event.
River Run ( http://www.uncwil.edu/riverrun/
) offers two main interactive data displays, the Geographic
Information Service (GIS) and the Data Visualization Tool (DVT).
GIS is a computer utility for mapping and analyzing geographic
locations and numerical data of events that occurred at those
places. This tool gives the user the power to link databases and
maps to create dynamic displays. The Data Visualization Tool is
similar to the color mapper for lake data described above, with the
exception that the X -axis of the displayed graphs is
analogous to the Y -axis in the lake data. That is, in the
lake graphs the vertical dimension is used to map lake depth,
whereas in the river graphs the horizontal axis of the graph maps
the flow of the river (from upstream on the left to downstream on
the right). The River Run program is linked to Internet-based
science educational program site, Students as Scientists ( http://smec.uncwil.edu/SAS_trial/SAS/index.htm
). The Students as Scientist Internet application provides an
excellent venue for students working within that program to publish
their work (Moore & Huber, 2001).
Visible Human ( http://www.dhpc.adelaide.edu.au/projects/vishuman2/
) uses an applet to process 14 Gb of imaging data allowing the user
to produce detailed two- and three-dimensional slice images of the
human body (and organs and tissues from the human body). This site
draws upon a human anatomy imaging database developed by the
National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ ). Using
this site, students can explore the images from different angles
and adjust viewing controls in various ways to highlight different
features or aspects of the images. For example, students can move
around within the heart to observe valves and chambers from various
angles. Such activities facilitate students constructing
understandings of how form follows function in biological
system.
Using Sites That Provide Access to Large Data
Sets
Perhaps the most valuable use of these sites is to
incorporate their use within inquiry-based units of study focused
on the science content to which the data is directly relevant, in
order to make the data come alive for the students. For example,
the Visible Human site would be an excellent resource to use within
a unit on human anatomy or biology. River Run and WOW might be used
within units on environmental sciences, the atmosphere, or the
hydrosphere. For example , Huber and Moore (2001b) described
how the River Run data visualization tool can be used to invite
students into inquiries about the impacts of Hurricanes on River
Systems (
http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/archive_of_meridian/win2001/internet/index.htm
) . In their example, students are directed to explore the
database using the animated graphic displays and try to find
anomalies, or sudden dramatic changes in the data displays.
Students might discover the frame shown in Figure 2, which shows,
among other things, a dramatic spike in fecal coliform bacteria and
a drop in dissolved oxygen. Through guided explorations of the
River Run database and other sources of information (which are
available online) students can discover that these events were
caused by the hurricane-induced failure of a sewage treatment
plant.
Figure
2. The effect of Hurricane Bonnie on four water quality
parameters from River Run.
The interactive nature of these sites, combined
with the authenticity of their data, allows students to engage in
meaningful inquiry using visual displays of data. Further, because
the sites contain extremely rich data sets, they are well suited to
ongoing studies that will give students repeated spaced practice in
developing science, mathematics, and graphing skills. Consider the
following example of how the River Run site might be used within a
unit applying the issues-based approach to inquiry valued within
the science-technology-society philosophy. In this example, the
River Run data visualization tool (DVT) and Geographic Information
System (GIS) would be used within a science class study of water
quality. Students could use the DVT to manipulate various water
quality parameters to see the changes that occurred in different
parts of a river system over time. Students could also use the GIS
to plot the location of various types of farms in the area of the
rivers and compare data from the two sources to look for evidence
of water quality degradation caused by agricultural run off. Such
an exercise would give students an enormous amount of practice
working with graphs, maps, and technology within a meaningful and
engaging context.
Internet applications such as WOW and River Run,
which expose children to literally hundreds of graphs within
meaningful and engaging contexts, may be far superior to
traditional graphing activities where students work with no more
than one or a few graphs over the course of an entire science or
math lesson. Certainly the efficacy of such Internet resources for
teaching graphing warrants further attention and research.
Conclusion
There is good reason to believe that interactive
Internet science education utilities can be used to facilitate
inquiry and promote educational reforms congruent with those
envisioned in the National Science Education Standards. Two
types of Internet sites appear especially promising, those that
offer simulations of research equipment or settings and those that
allow students to interact with large relevant data sets. Sites
within this first set might be especially effective as extensions
of hands-on activities and as assessment tools. Applications for
sites within the second category include activities that make
quantitative information come alive for students and allow students
to perform inquiries in which science information is studied within
a context that cuts across traditional curriculum boundaries.
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Contact Information
Christopher J. Moore
St. Mary Middle School
412 Ann Street
Wilmington, NC 28401
910-392-5594
CHRISMOORE@ec.rr.com
Richard Huber
Curricular Studies Department
University of North Carolina Wilmington
Wilmington, NC 28403
910-962-3561
huberr@uncwil.edu
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