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Background Water on the Web (WOW) began with a focus on water quality - linking the disciplines of chemistry and biology. The project team quickly recognized that the data we were making available could be used as a real-world data source for helping teach basic science concepts in a variety of disciplines. In our first four years of the project we focused on providing lessons to support teaching basic science through individual lessons that could be infused into the already crowded school curriculum. The primary audiences for these lessons were high school science students and early college science students. Learning objectives varied and were independent for each lesson. WOW also contains a series of PowerPoint lectures and support materials for college undergraduates studying water quality sciences. The materials are designed to be used as a two-semester course in their entirety, but are developed in a modular format, because most teachers blend resources from multiple sources to enhance their teaching. The learning objectives vary with each module. Although these lectures are designed for undergraduate use, we are hearing that some high school and even middle school teachers are using and adapting the PowerPoint resources.
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Motivation Two issues confronted me as a life science teacher in trying to provide quality learning experiences for my students. I wanted my students to do "real science" and I wanted them to get outdoors to do environmental studies, including water quality studies on rivers and lakes. Lakes and streams provide wonderful examples of many of the laws of physics and chemistry and of the inter-relationships between the fields of geology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology. Opportunities for students to work with current data and scientific expertise are limited. School schedules and field trip costs also limit students' opportunities to work in the field. The rare field trip only allowed students to get a "snapshot" experience in understanding the environment. They never seemed to "get" the dynamic nature of environmental interactions. The Internet opened up opportunities for students to share in the work of scientists. A unique opportunity to work with a robotic sampling device through the University of Minnesota Duluth provided a potential solution for the two issues confronting me as a classroom science teacher. With data from the device, a RUSS (Remote Underwater Sampling Station), and with the Internet, we could finally extend the students' periodic field experiences and connect students with scientists, scientific data, curricula and resources.
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Learning Activities Our project team has diverse research and teaching responsibilities. The principle investigator, Bruce Munson, teaches secondary science methods for undergraduate pre-service teachers. He uses the WOW curricula, data, and resources to introduce methods for teaching inquiry learning. Each of his students needs to complete at least one of the WOW lessons and complete an open-ended inquiry project. Cindy Hagley, co-principle investigator, is an extension educator specializing in water quality. She uses the WOW resources to teach basic water quality concepts as she works with school groups, informal public audiences, and local decision-makers concerned about water quality. Co-principle investigators Rich Axler, George Host, and Carl Richards also use WOW resources to teach some informal public audiences, but their primary teaching is in undergraduate and graduate level science classes. There they use the WOW resources to teach key water quality concepts and relationships.
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Impact on Teaching and Learning The WOW project team hears frequently from high school and college teachers who are pleased with their use of the WOW resources. Many advanced limnology/aquatic ecology classes, including graduate level courses, and professional education programs (such as the US Environmental Protection Agency's on-line Watershed Academy) are using the Web site. From the descriptions of their use of the materials it appears we have succeeded in providing a resource that addresses the concerns that motivated us to begin the project. Teachers report that students are engaged and motivated by the use of "real-world, real-time" data to address real problems. Use of the WOW Web site has increased steadily throughout the life of the project. We now receive about 1.5 million hits per month during the academic year. External project evaluators have used focus groups, surveys, and case studies to evaluate the impacts of the project. The results of these studies verify the success of WOW in engaging students in the data-based learning of science concepts.
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Tips for Teaching Most teachers find that there is much more available at the WOW Web site than they originally suspected. Our major recommendation is that first-time users take the time to drill down 3-4 levels in every area of the WOW Web site to uncover its richness. Students were the ultimate audience for WOW, but, we have found that many, if not most of the teachers that ues WOW are not formally trained in the aquatic sciences. WOW has prooven to be an excellent resource for their continuing education. In using WOW resources to teaching the nature and processes of inquiry, we have reinforced our understanding of real science being a complex, lengthy process that requires constant evaluation of data and the application of a strong understanding of basic science concepts. Our experiences have reinforced the value of the approach advocated by the National Science Teachers' Association and the National Science Education Standards - "depth, not breadth". Inquiry science teaching using WOW resources take time, but immerses the students more deeply in the subject and enriches their learning.
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Reflections WOW success has also come, in part, because of two additional US EPA-funded Web- and data-based projects it spawned. These two projects, LakeSuperiorStreams and Lake Access use nonformal educational Web sites to help the general public and decision makers learn how their actions affect their water resources. The EPA-funded Web sites share real-time data and WOW's unique data visualization tools and methods to illustrate how actions in the watershed and natural climatic events affect water quality and habitats in lakes and streams. The context is management-oriented. Together, WOW, LakeAccess and LakeSuperiorStreams provide a powerful set of educational materials and real world context for teaching a wide variety of audiences. The Lake Access and LakeSuperiorStreams projects provided additional data sources for WOW. But, we are continuing to look for still more data sources for the WOW Web site. We want the data streams and the contextual information for the water quality and ancillary environmental data to be relevant to each area of the country, so we would ultimately like to have data from a water body that is recognizable and familiar to students in every region. We are also continuing to work on building case studies and laboratory lessons that focus on the unique issues confronting each of the regions where we are gathering and reporting data.
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