Scientific Literacy Seminar explores use of computer technologies
by Irma S. Jarcho
This year the Seminar on Scientific Literacy at Columbia University has focused on the use of computer technologies to improve science education. On 27 January 1999 the Seminar united with the Seminar on Computers, Man and Society in presenting the work of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) at the Stevens Institute in Hoboken, NJ. The presentation by Dr. Edward A. Friedman, Director of the Center, concentrated on the work of creating a national model for effective web use in America's schools.
Dr. Friedman considered technology use, particularly at the middle school level, as unfocused, repetitive and not offering an intellectual challenge, especially in inner city schools. He felt that Internet technology is a valuable tool for science and math education, and extending its use is one of the aims of the CIESE program. The great value of the Internet for schools, as he sees it, is the creation of a revolutionary technology to connect science and math institutions to bring state-of-the-art research to the full range of K-12 schooling.
Friedman gave many examples of this approach. For example, with the "Hands-On Universe" project students have access to a research grade telescope. They can request images which are then photographed overnight and sent to the classroom. One night one of the requested photographs contained a new asteroid. Since the photographs have very high resolution, students can make quantitative measurements with them.
Another example of a schools-research laboratory link was the work done at Union Hill High School in New Jersey. Students designed their own experiments and had the scanning electron microscope (SEM) provide the results. These programs provide students with direct hands-on experiences in research.
Students connected with a North Carolina Zoo follow elephants who are being moved out of a protected area. What will happen to them? Students can monitor their progress -- or lack of it! Even fourth and fifth graders can participate in this study. They keep a daily log, ask questions of the researchers and are, in short, active participants in the work. It all reminded me very much of the valuable -- and similar -- work done in the Jason Project.
More universities and colleges should enter into partnership with the schools to implement this technology in the classroom. Although this is a tool for teachers, it takes a teacher several years to be expert enough in the required technology. Unfortunately, there is at present no mechanism to implement fully the support structure these programs require. Learning about the technology is not enough -- we need an effective support system for teachers. Though we are still far from the goals, the methods for attaining them are clear.
At the next seminar, on 25 March 1999, Drs. David Rosner and Amy Fairchild of Columbia University's Public Health Program spoke of "Rebuilding New York on the Web: Infrastructure, Health, and the Use of the Web as a Method for Popularizing History and Science." The program they described explores the boundaries of science, medicine, history, and ethics. It involves creating a web site they call "The Living City Project," which examines issues of public health and medicine in New York City from 1865 to 1920. This was a time when the City was developing, and this development will be examined both demographically and structurally, to answer questions such as the following: What was characteristic of the built environment? What did people die of? Who would get pure water? What were the results of a four-block area with only one privy? The web site will focus on the history of quarantine and on the efficacy of tuberculosis control measures, also on how sewer lines and water lines affected mortality rates in the city, especially with regard to typhoid rates.
Rosner and Fairchild see their Living City Project as a research tool for the study of urban history and social change. Statistics obtained from the Citizens Commission Report and the reports of the New York City Health Department show that by the end of winter 4000 tons of human waste had accumulated, and the privies were overflowing. The dirt and horse manure in the filthy streets gave rise to the architectural change of the stoops of houses. The occupants of a carriage could step directly onto the top step of the stoop without dirtying themselves in the filthy streets.
The web site, when completed, will be a valuable research tool, not just at the postgraduate level but also, I believe, for high school studies. It promises a fascinating look at life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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