The SII is a consortium of science centers (museums) linked together to bring cutting edge science and the technology associated with science research to the public. The purpose of the project is to create a network of resources created by teams of teachers, science museum personnel, scientists and technical staff and hosted by science museums. The resources being created are intended for use by anyone, but especially in the classroom setting as well as for exploratory learning. In the SII model, the small, local focus teams of teachers and individuals from the science museums and partner research institutions create educational resources for science and math classes based on NASA data and related information and networked science research services. The life cycle of the materials and on-line tools involves testing in the classroom, evaluation, modification and revision and further testing in different environments. These resources are made available through the host museum, and coordinated nationwide during the course of the program. The SII is intended to build a sustainable framework for this process and accommodate new and experimental activities that use networked technology in innovative ways.

STRATEGY

In creating a viable strategy at the outset of the program, the SII partners decided to leverage the positive experience gained in the Science OnLine (SOL) pilot project in which teachers, working with scientists and others including museum staff, created lesson plans describing classroom activities.

• Raw materials (a grab bag) such as images, text, video clips and other tools etc., that can be used as is, incorporated into classroom activities, or used according to the whims of the user.
• Documented resources that contain raw materials augmented with documentation, samples of use, links to classroom activities and other documented ideas upon which teachers can create activities for their particular classroom.
• Fully documented classroom activities described in detail (lesson plans) which can be used as is, or, certainly, modified to suit a teacher's circumstances.

TESTING: The materials that are authored by a team are tested in the classroom by the teachers on that team. After modification and revision they are offered for testing by other SII teams. Author teams create resources and classroom activities that naturally reflect the "personality" of the host museum and locale as well as the team teacher's classroom situation.

EVALUATION: The evaluation and measurement of the direct and more intangible effects of the process and the classroom experiences are coordinated at each science center. These in turn are shared project wide, and commentary supplied back to author teams.

• Defined overall strategy - small teams for authoring and for testing.
• Identified museums interested in sponsoring authors.
• Identified museums interested in testing resources, and identified specific resources and lesson plan modules to be tested.
• Identified all teacher participants in varied school districts.
• Obtained project wide accessment that initially, small numbers of teachers in strong teams was more effective that interacting with large numbers of teachers. Emphasis is on quality not quantity and using the multiplier effect (participant teachers become advocates and mentors as the project matures, and can in turn act as facilitators for new materials.)
• Clarified roles of tester sites:
  • Adopted strategy that teachers and their teams concentrate on pilot testing both resource "toolkits" and stand-alone lessons, and evaluate effectiveness of use and also the presentation. Topics include:
    • Mars ("The Martian Sun Times")
    • Artifical Satellites
• Adopted plan to evaluate effectiveness of earlier, Science OnLine, stand alone lesson plans. Some of the topics covered by existing lesson plans are:
  • The electromagnetic spectrum ("Electromagnetic Radiation On Trial ")
  • Satellite Orbits ("The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer Orbit")
  • Satellite Communications ("The EUVE Satellite Data Flow Demonstration")
  • Mars ("The Martian Sun Times")
  • Artifical Satellites
• Planned that evaluations of resources and lesson plans would include a wide variety of subjects covering presentation, effectiveness, content, execution and creation process. The evaluations are adapted and augmented from the Science OnLine pilot project. Sample evaluation questions for the current materials include:
  • Do resource toolkits present information that is clear, well-documented, and easy to find?
  • What specific suggestions can be made to improve toolkits?
  • Is access to the scientists/groups that created the Mars Today and EUVE Satellite Positional Data Tools especially important for their use? If so, in what fashion, email, interactive WWW form, etc?
  • Do the scientific research tools "Mars Today" and "EUVE Satellite Data" tools, as presented, inspire teachers to create lessons significantly different than the existing lessons "The Martian Sun-Times" and "The EUVE Orbit" lessons? Elaborate on modifications that can be made to these tools or the presentation of them so they serve an educational community.
  • Do the Martian-Sun Times and EUVE Orbit lessons actually enhance understanding of the the purpose of the corresponding research tools they are based on?
  • Are similar or perhaps less structured examples of use of such tools actually useful?

• Distributed project and management a hurdle.
• Diverse communities, teachers, and museums contribute to heterogeneity of approaches and products, but have the benefit of fostering interesting diversity.
• Tester teams often underestimate effort required to modify, adapt and create materials. Project direction and coordination requires keen attention to the "human factor" and sensitivity to local needs and problems.
• Interchanges between author teams and tester teams need to be smoothed and nurtured by project coordinators and museum facilitators.
• Authoring of Web documents in HTML is a significant technical hurdle for most teachers. Teams now have technical support and authoring assistance to manage logistics of resource and lesson plan creation to reduce the initial steep learning curve associated with HTML authoring for teachers.
• Participation of scientists on teams is problematic. Teachers and museum personnel welcome enthusiastically their participation as a collaborator and resource. Barriers to participation exist: poor institutional validation and support of scientist participation, limited
• Access to infrastructure is still a significant hurdle. Several museums have addressed this by providing in kind or volutary support of teacher access to the Web. Infrastructure costs are high and funding very poor for school and teacher access.
• Teachers, school district personnel, parents and other community members require clear articulation of usefullness of network access. Information is not equivalent to knowledge, web surfing is not equivalent to learning.
• The general public still has a poor understanding of the "scientific process". Therefore contemporary teaching of science by and large does not emphasize the thought process, discovery or reasoning skills. Science is often still viewed as verification of of checklist of facts or pursuit of "the right answer". This cultural background causes innovative use of the internet and remote sensing data for educational purposes illusive.
• Teachers are frustrated that information on the Web is difficult to find.
• Often it is better to introduce teachers to scientific research topics (interaction directly with scientist through "Meet a Scientist" sessions) or introduce a number of tools and materials before lesson topics and specific classroom activities are chosen. If topics are chosen first, it is often difficult to find the specific on-line raw materials appropriate for the classroom activity as envisaged.
• Research tools created for scientists and technically literate individuals are difficult for teachers and the public to use ad hoc. Tools either 1) need to be interpreted and/or 2) need to be created in collaboration with teachers or some other user. That is, as the research community migrates data, documentation, research results and online research tools for public access and use, consultation and collaboration with representative users is recommended and well worth the effort.