9350523 Ridd A growing world-wide supply of environmental data, the availability of sophisticated and inexpensive computer-based hardware, and the development of user-friendly, flexible software makes possible the development of modules which can put students in touch with the world at any scale from the locality of the student to the world at large. Many national and international organizations are networked and committed to collecting and sharing increasing volumes of Earth-environmental data. There is a growing awareness of global change and environmental stress and the responsibility humans have for these conditions and their amelioration. Students can and should be part of the quest to explore these questions in new ways. Through hands-on, image analysis and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) digital map manipulation, secondary school students can overlay remote-sensed data to see vital relations at the interface between humans and the natural world. Two modules, of two weeks duration, are developed in this pilot project: One is global in perspective such as decertification or tropical deforestation; the other concerns local conditions such as water use. The modules are developed by teachers, science educators and scientists working together and are field tested in diverse locations. The software runs on a 386 equivalent computer with enough memory to accommodate ArcView files and 4 MB of RAM. The project is governed by a national advisory board and has two external evaluators to document the effects on students and teachers. ***
