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"Inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is the central strategy for teaching science." (National Research Council, 1996, p. 31 http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/)
If we are truly going to ask kids to engage in serious
intellectual activity -- authentic inquiry -- then we need
to give them a whole new set of tools. No longer is it
sufficient to simply write a 2-page report on streams, say;
rather, we are asking to them to understand how fertilizer
impacts on the water quality of the stream, and what the
farmer might do to prevent fertilizer run-off. The only way we are going to address the diverse needs of
all learners and provide them with the necessary tools is to
harnass computing technologies. The UMDL is a first attempt at creating a learning resource with the above characteristics. We are currently deploying it in middle and high schools in Ann Arbor and Detroit. This website, then, contains a broad range of material:
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Still further, we in the U.S.
are claiming that all students need to learn science; that
science is not just for the upper 20% of high achievers.
And, in particular, a "digital
library" -- a workspace attached to collections of online
resources (from text to simulations, from chat spaces to
videos, from interactive maps to online science mentors) --
is a key tool: a digital library can provide, ready-at-hand,
an unprecedented set of resources to better support inquiry
on questions of students' own invention.