This three-year project will develop nine unit (or approximately ninety weeks) of supplementary science material target for grades 7-9 and organized around telecommunications-based, collaborative student research. The project involves coordinated curriculum and software development, formative and sumative research, dissemination and teacher training. The work will be performed by TERC in collaboration with the National Geographic Society. NGS will match the NSF funding and act as co-developer, producer and publisher. Additional support for the inclusion of microcomputer-based lab material will come from IBM. Each unit requires students to gather date, share these data over a telecommunications network with students in other school districts and analyze the collected data. This allows students to perform like scientists. Before gathering the data, students study the underlying science content and learn the experimental skills required to perform appropriate measurement. Following the data collection, students apply data analysis techniques and reflect on the social significance of the problem addressed in the study. Study areas proposed include: Conditions for Growth, Trees, Student Fitness, Acid Deposition, Recycling and Composting, Radon, Alternative Energy sources, Automobile Accidents, and Greenhouse Gasses. Each unit will be carefully tried and tested in typical classrooms. User software will be developed that will improve upon that developed for the elementary NGS Kids Network, significantly extending the analysis possible using some database-like functions. Host software will also be developed that simplifies and speeds up the collection of data.
