Dr. Wendy Saul is an education professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County campus, where she specializes in the use of children's literature and trade books in elementary science instruction. Dr. Saul has designed a collaborative effort with Scholastic Press to develop a commercial bibliographic software package. This microcomputer-based system would provide teachers and librarians with information on science trade books for children. The software would run on Apples, IBMs, and Macintosh computers, and could use CD-ROM drives if available or could rely on floppy disk drives. This computerized bibliographic resource would contain titles, content descriptions, annotations concerning hands-on activities and materials, treatment of gender and ethnic issues, suitability for students with physical disabilities or limited English proficiency, and brief reviews by teachers and children's literature specialists. The software would also contain an auditing function that would record how users navigate through the database query system. These audit data would be used to research how children, teachers, and librarians approach the use of science trade books, and would inform the software developers in refining the program. The proposed bibliographic software system has potential for broad impact on the teaching and learning of science in elementary schools. By increasing access to appropriate literature and trade books, this information resource will encourage teachers to use science as a way to expand reading and language arts instruction, and will improve the integration of instruction across traditionally separate disciplines. Cost sharing represents 146% of the NSF contribution.
