Advanced Technologies

NASA Bridges the Gap

NASA'S PRINCIPAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT center for education technologies is its Classroom of the Future™ (COTF) program. By providing technology-based tools and resources to K-12 schools nationwide, the COTF is able to bridge the gap between America's classrooms and the expertise developed by NASA's scientists over the last 40 years.

Students are challenged to solve problems from technology-based materials that are first developed and researched by the COTF. This is just one of many NASA-related programs located in the Erma Ora Byrd Center for Educational Technologies™ in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Supported by a cooperative agreement between NASA's Education Division at NASA Headquarters and Wheeling Jesuit University, the COTF's efforts are supported by a NASA Educator Resource Center and a Challenger Learning Center® in a unique educational facility that also has video capabilities for videoconferencing, Internet video streaming, production, editing and broadcasting NASA Television via satellite.

The COTF web site (http://www.cotf.edu) highlights technology activities, such as workshops, news and events, CD­ROMs, the 21st Century Teacher Initiative and related technology programs, including the following:

• BioBLAST® (Better Learning through Adventure, Simulation, and Technology) is a multimedia curriculum supplement for high school biology classes, consistent with the National Science Education Standards. Adventure-simulation software with a futuristic, problem-solving scenario is used to send student teams to a lunar research facility to show high school students what it takes to live and work in a space environment, using an inquiry approach. Students design their own bioregenerative life support system (BLiSS) using the BaBS (Build a BLiSS System) simulator, an integrated modeling system developed at the COTF, and they conduct real scientific research using hands-on laboratory investigations and computer simulations. BioBLAST®'s virtual reality interface gives students access to Internet-based telecommunications resources, to current NASA Advanced Life Support Research (ALS) program data and to NASA scientists currently involved in ALS research. Visit http://www.cotf.edu/BioBLAST
  
  
• Astronomy Village® 1: Investigating the Universe is a CD-ROM-based multimedia program with lessons to engage ninth and tenth grade students in scientific inquiry, learning about stars and stellar evolution and using NASA resources and data. The program's interface is based on the village-like appearance of major observatories on mountain tops. Students use an image processing program, an image browser and various simulation programs. Visit http://www.cotf.edu/AV/av1.html
  
  
• Astronomy Village® 2: Investigating the Solar System is a multimedia CD-ROM designed to complement and extend the science curricula for the fifth through seventh grades, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. This innovative approach to solar system astronomy is based on the award-winning high school product Astronomy Village: Investigating the Universe. This new CD-ROM is being developed and classroom-tested during 1998­1999. Visit http://www.cet.edu/av2/
  
  
• Exploring the Environment™ (ETE) is a series of interdisciplinary, problem-based learning modules that help students become environmentally aware, teaching them to consider and understand the impact of their actions on Earth. Using environmental Earth science course modules accessible over the Internet, the project engages student teams in addressing real-world problems related to weather, population growth, biodiversity, land-use patterns, volcanoes, water pollution and global warming. Students learn information technology skills as well as collect, analyze, generate and transmit information using computers. They e-mail their findings to other ETE schools and contact scientists for answers to questions. They search the Internet for information and use word-processing software or hypertext mark-up language (html) to report on their approach to a problem. Visit http://www.cotf.edu/ete/main.html

For more information, contact Nitin Naik, President of the Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling Jesuit University. Call: 304/243-2388, Fax: 304/243-2497, E-mail: nitin@cotf.edu
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