The goal of the Labnet project is to establish student research projects as an important and accepted part of science instruction throughout the United States by enhancing science teachers' ability to involve students in science investigations. To this end, the project will facilitate project laboratories and the establishment of a telecommunications network. The labs can be offered as either full courses or as components of existing high school science courses. The three year project takes full advantage of microcomputer- based labs (MBL) and telecommmunications technologies. TERC, Tufts University and Dickinson College will join forces to offer workshops to 120 teachers of secondary school science (in teams of four/school) and to 180 teacher-trainers who will function as disseminators and outreach leaders for this project. The teachers will be involved in four weeks of workshop activity including content and computer use, three during the first summer and one in the second summer with intervening meetings and staff observations during the school year. The "trainers" will be working for a total of three weeks during one summer. Some of these "trainers" by virtue of their own background and expertise may participate in a two- week session. Each "trainer" will be charged with running workshops for at least 30 other teachers using the first group of teachers as role models and as an additional resource for their peers. The project predicts that many teachers across the country will be impacted by this project and thus a significant fraction of all high school students will have access to project laboratory experiences during their secondary education. The project is based on already developed units (through a previously funded project) dealing with acid rain, seismic activity, weather and radiation with the option of developing units around other already existing MBL activities in chemistry, biology, physics and earth science. This MBL approach to laboratory investigations has proven to be effective to every population group from the gifted and talented to special needs students. Once started on a national scale, the project will be able to continue without future funding because it has strong private- sector support and will create interest among research scientists and engineers as well as educators through its long- term student data-collection and potential environmental monitoring networks. Acknowledging that it could take a long time to implement a nation-wide network of students and teachers engaged in research issues, TERC has committed itself to long-term involvement with this project. An amount equivalent to 20% of the NSF request for funding has been obtained from outside sources, including TERC, IBM, McGraw- Hill, Tufts University and Dickinson College as well as contributions from school districts.
