Papers in PDF format

addition to participating in teacher workshops and other professional events. The Boulder Valley School
District has been supportive of our efforts, allowing teachers the flexibility to modify their larger curriculum to
mesh with KGS, and in supporting technology in the classroom via a sister project, Boulder Valley Internet
Project. In this regard, we have found that the nature of our research has brought us into contact with a wide
range of groups; effective collaborations with these diverse groups has allowed us to develop and implement
our project with ease.
KGS, now in it's fourth year, is extending its collaborative scope to formally include software
developers from the University of Michigan's Weather Underground (BlueSkies team;
http://groundhog.sprl.umich.edu/), and scientists and educators from The Concord Consortium
(http://www.concord.org/) Project GREEN (http://www.igc.apc.org/green), and the Global Hydrology and
Climate Center in Huntsville, Alabama (http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/). We believe that upfront
collaboration with software developers to produce age-appropriate, effective interfaces will enhance the
learning potential of our curriculum and similar technology-centered curricula. In addition, by combining
development efforts with other educational researchers as well as content experts, we can mesh the best pieces
of our individual strengths to produce a better product, both educationally and technically. A pilot run of our
new curriculum, entitled One Sky, Many Voices: Hurricanes ‘96, is scheduled for October of 1996.
We look ahead towards exploring new areas, including integrating real-time multimedia conferencing
software with resource-sharing features. This would allow us to bring together regional schools and scientists
to dialog about a current weather event as it happens; sharing images and text in real-time. Other
developments include enhancing BlueSkies for student data collection, integrating data analysis, graphical
interfaces and messaging into a single package, allowing students to share not only text, but graphical displays
of their own design.
In summary, we have found that the Kids as Global Scientist's Internet-based curriculum has fostered
a wide variety of collaborative relationships, including student learning environments, teacher professional
development, and has worked to bridge the gap between scientists and educators. Our current research
approach has expanded to allow for collaborative efforts among software developers, educators and content
specialists in order to produce a more comprehensive and effective learning tools for middle school students.