ExploraNet On-line since December 1993, The Exploratorium's net presence, called ExploraNet, has been our center for experimentation on how to bring experiences and resources like the Exploratorium to students, teachers, and people who may not have the opportunity to come into the actual physical museum itself. In addition to the regular information about the museum (admission, directions, events, etc.) we have tried to incorporate as much content as possible. On this web site, you will find pictures, news items in science, electronic versions of our famous hands-on exhibits, even how to dissect a cow's eye! We follow current trends in technology and are always experimenting with new ways to present science on the Internet.

The Learning Studio The Learning Studio is an experimental multimedia and communications lab in the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art and human perception. The Exploratorium is located in the Palace Of Fine Arts in the Marina district of San Francisco. The Learning Studio works primarily with teachers, exploratorium staff and artists. We hope that in the future when our facility expands we will be able to serve the visiting public as well. The Learning Studio provides opportunities for creative multimedia and communications development. The Learning Studio is part of the Science Learning Network (SLN). Funded by the National Science Foundation and the Unisys Corporation, the SLN seeks to provide meaningful Internet explorations and resources for science educators. Ross School is one of the Exploratorium's partners in this project. The Learning Studio is the place where the Exploratorium conducts many of its telecommunications projects and experiments.

Science Learning Network The challenges of preparing teachers to use the technology that will link the classroom and the school to the Information Superhighway are vast. Even if teachers have or can anticipate having hardware and software access, they need to be convinced that the technology will be of instructional value to their students. They also need to be assured that they can learn how to manage the technology, both as independent professionals and in the classroom setting. Perhaps most challenging, teachers need to grapple with the model of teaching and learning implied by the on-line classroom--a model in which the teacher is facilitator of student exploration and inquiry learning, rather than the purveyor of a body of received knowledge. The Science Learning Network (SLN), a partnership among six science museums and Unisys Corporation, has been established to create an on-line educational resource network. With funding from the National Science Foundation's Networking Infrastructure for Education Program (NIE) and Unisys Corporation, the SLN will integrate the educational resources offered by science/technology centers with the power of telecomputing via the Internet to provide powerful new support for teacher development and science learning. By the end of the project in 1997, the SLN will develop and evaluate the following: UniVERSE (Unisys/Science Museums Virtual Explorations and Resources for Science Education) An organized collection of on-line science, math, and technology (SMT) resources and a software package featuring a variety of communication functions that will enable teachers to have meaningful Internet explorations. On-line Museum Alliance - A national consortium of six science museums and Unisys Corporation that will pool their resources to create on-line assets and provide ongoing professional development in telecomputing for pre-collegiate SMT teachers. On-line Demonstration Schools - network of six K-8 schools, working in collaboration with alliance museums and Unisys volunteers that will serve as demonstration sites for on-line teaching and learning in SMT. The primary audience for this project is K-8 classroom teachers and science museum educators. Over the course of three years, the Science Learning Network will provide direct support to 120 teachers and 3,000 K-8 students in at least six on-line demonstration schools. Through existing teacher networks, each museum will offer professional development for additional teachers each year in museum-based Network Resource Centers. By the end of the project, the SLN will provide field-tested models of a new kind of on-line SMT community through the collaboration of science museums with industry and schools. The sustainable impact of the SLN will be assured by UniVERSE's status as an Internet accessible database and software package and the development of the national alliance of on-line museums, whose network resources will be made available on an ongoing basis to educators. The three-year development of the on-line demonstration schools will provide vital data about how schools become members of the on-line community and demonstrate how teaching and learning in SMT are enhanced by on-line resources.

Project Link Project LINK (A Live and Interactive Network of Knowledge) a collaboration among Eureka Scientific Inc., The Exploratorium, and NASA/Ames Research Center conducted an air-to-ground point-to-point internet video conference between the Exploratorium and NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) this September. Teachers, students and scientists in the air and on the ground conducted inquiry based science experiments and exchanged results and student questions via the internet. The project was intended to pilot-test strategies for facilitating the live interface between scientists and K-12 teachers aboard the KAO with their peers and students on the ground using the resources and technical expertise available at science museums and private industry. Two teachers and one student from California had the opportunity to fly aboard the Kuiper, answer student questions, demonstrate experiments, and interview scientists. Teachers Coral Zanin of Middletown Middle School (Lake County) and Marco Meniketti of Sinaloa Middle School (Marin County) flew along with student Amber Mills (Middletown High School) aboard the KAO. Over 250 students and other visitors to the Exploratorium packed the Exploratorium's McBean Theater and participated in the live Internet video conference. Students participated in experiments on the ground and compared them to experiments in the air. Participants asked the teachers and scientist aboard the plane questions concerning pressure, infra-red light, cosmic rays and other phenomena.

COVIS Traditionally, K-12 science education has consisted of the teaching of well-established facts. This approach bears little or no resemblance to the question-centered, collaborative practice of real scientists. Through the use of advanced technologies, the CoVis Project at Northwestern University is attempting to transform science learning to better resemble the authentic practice of science. The CoVis Project will explore issues of scaling, diversity, and sustainability as they relate to the use of networking technologies to enable high school students to work in collaboration with remote students, teachers, and scientists. An important outcome of this work will be the construction of distributed electronic communities dedicated to science learning. Participating students study atmospheric and environmental sciences through inquiry-based activities. Using state of the art scientific visualization software, specially modified to be appropriate to a learning environment, students have access to the same research tools and data sets used by leading-edge scientists in the field. The CoVis Project provides students with a range of collaboration and communication tools. These include: desktop video teleconferencing; shared software environments for remote, real-time collaboration; access to the resources of the Internet; a multimedia scientist's "notebook"; and scientific visualization software. In addition to deploying new technology, we work closely with teachers at participating schools to develop new curricula and new pedagogical approaches that take advantage of project-enhanced science learning. "Collaborative Visualization" thus refers to development of scientific understanding which is mediated by scientific visualization tools in a collaborative context. The CoVis Project seeks to understand how science education could take broad advantage of these capabilities, providing motivating experiences for students and teachers with contemporary science tools and topics. The next decade will bring widespread, networked multimedia interpersonal computing. The CoVis Project is a blueprint to inform educators, researchers, and policy makers on the effective and sustainable use of interpersonal, collaborative media in science education.

Science Information Infrastructure (SII) The Science Information Infrastructure (SII) Program partners research institutions directly with science museums providing access to a rich assortment of science data. The construction of resource centers, associated museum displays, and workshops will be accomplished through a collaboration of researchers, museum staff, teachers, and industry personnel. The materials assembled and distributed for use will in turn be incorporated into teacher, student, and general community workshops and training programs at participating museums and research institutions. The SII project partners are: Center for EUV Astrophysics Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Boston Museum of Science Chicago's Adler Planetarium Exploratorium Lawrence Hall of Science National Air & Space Museum New York Hall of Science Science Museum of Virginia University of California Museum of Paleontology

Informal Science Educators' Network (ISEN) Teacher Educators' Network (TEN) Developing a Community of Practitioners for Science Education Reform Funded by Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project. The ISEN/TEN project partners are: Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development (FWL) Exploratorium Project Summary ISEN/TEN is a multifaceted effort to strengthen the capacity of science museums and other science centers to serve as strategic partners for schools in science and math education reform. Educators from science centers, museums, and related informal institutions will link electronically, and by other means, in order to strengthen their professional ties and enhance their involvement in the mainstream of school science reform. This is a first step in providing electronic networking capability to a large number of resource-poor educators in a cost-effective and easy way, preparing them for further advances in networking and informational technology. To develop this community of practitioners, ISEN/TEN will: Create on-line resources and services that will correspond to the special interests, needs and functions of this group to serve as agents of change in education reform. This will include designing and publishing Internet World Wide Web pages, creating and moderating an Internet listserv and on-line conferences, and developing an on-line library of relevant resources. Provide financial and technical assistance to facilitate on-line participation, changing the dynamics of this community of professionals by "leveling the playing field" by enabling a large number of these individuals to have electronic access. Provide special orientation, training and other support services to strengthen the educators' sense of common purpose and establish a shared vision for using technology to enhance their impact on science education. The primary target group for the project will be informal educators who already are working in support of formal education. They are members of the ASTC Teacher Educators' Network (TEN). This group of approximately 250 museum-based educators represents an active, identifiable affinity group with common experiences. The secondary target group will be informal educators from the broader field who are just beginning to develop an interest in supporting formal education. ISEN/TEN will draw on the strengths and resources of the field to implement the project, securing collaboration with innovative flagship institutions among ASTC members and with a representative cross-section of institutions among zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, and planetariums. ISEN/TEN will work with national organizations, such as the American Association of Museums, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and regional organizations such as the Science Education Academy of the Bay Area, to generate participation in the network and to develop special on-line resources.

Learning With Telecommunications: Ross School, Apple Computer, & the Exploratorium Telecommunications provide the opportunity to extend community, and to bring a range of resources to students. They also provide grand opportunities among many different kinds of institutions of learning, including museums, libraries, schools and homes. In the Spring of 1993 a collaboration was established between Ross School, the Exploratorium, and Apple Computer, Inc., to explore opportunities in this area. Ross School is a small K-8 public school which has proven itself to be an accomplished learning environment, which is interested in extending its efforts with the use of technology. The Exploratorium is an internationally acclaimed science museum that is interested in extending its educational reach to schools using telecommunications through its Center for Media and Communications. The Learning Technologies Group within the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computer, Inc., has an ongoing program in Media-Rich Collaborative learning (MiRaCLe) which is involved in the design of new tools to enhance learning. These three groups have engaged a number of telecommunication and design experiments, and have a range of plans for ongoing activities. The intent of these groups is to establish a model program that can later be generalized which: provides professional colleagueship for teachers breaks the isolation of the school provides information resources to the school connects scientists with students directly provides interconnections between diverse groups of students and teachers provides a distribution mechanism for student and teacher work The focus for these telecommunications activities are media-rich communications of a range of sorts, although text based systems are being used as well. A number of tools are being used for these interconnections. Included amongst these are: First Class e-mail Internet America On-line AppleLink Also included are a number of Apple designed tools, including "Boardwalk," a board- centered media messaging system. In 1993, an exploratory project was completed which demonstrated how Boardwalk could be used to connect the questions of Ross children with the scientific expertise of the Exploratorium. Students became quite expert at basic weather-related concepts in this trial, and they came to ask questions quite fluidly. In 1994, this general methodology was extended to see how teachers might use this technology in communicating locally about their own learning. It provided a context for reflective practice within the teaching community. In 1994 this collaboration was awarded a grant of free T1 line connection among the three sites to extend the experimentation through Pacific Telesis' CalREN program. This grant allows the extension of a number of experiments, and extends the number of schools involved in the collaboration. There are a number of projects planned for 1995 in this program, including a second grade science unit, a fifth grade rocketry project, and an eighth grade unit on sound. Other topics for experimentation planned include teacher portfolios, mathematical reflection and general multimedia composition. The assertion in all these projects is that "The Content is in the Connection." It shifts the model of telecommunications from that of connecting "people to data" to that of connecting "people to people, some of whom are experts.

Remembering Nagasaki  "Remembering Nagasaki" commemorates the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and features the photographs of Yosuke Yamahata, a Japanese army photographer who was in Nagasaki the day after the bombing. The site currently offers an archive of responses collected from our visitors and reveals an extremely compelling discussion about the atomic age.

Internet Stations at the Exploratorium As part of it's Multimedia Playground shows, the Exploratorium supplied live T-1 connected workstations for the public to explore the Internet. These workstations proved so successful that the Exploratorium has continued to provide this service to our patrons. Not only are they being used as a place to get aquainted with the Internet for the first time, but we also see usage from long-time Internet users who want to show family and friends what all the hub-bub is about. Some visitors, on vacation from distant locations, use the workstations to check up on things at home!