Some science teachers want the cake
Some want the ingredients

By Tom Mead

Science and technology are two of the most rapidly expanding horizons in education. Science students and teachers from Kindegarten through the first two years of college need access to science resources that engage curious students, keep pace with the racing horizons and fully support teachers.

NASA space science material aimed at K-14 teachers is presented at SEGway, the Science Education Gate-way. A product of the High-Performance Computing and Communication Program, the SEGway website is the public resource center for one of NASA's Learning Technologies Projects, The Science Information Infrastructure.

Carol A. Christian, director of the Office of Public Outreach, Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., said about SEGway, "Our idea is to take something that we in the science community use, create an effective information interface for it, interlace it with the needs of the education community, make sure the resulting resources adhere to the relevant state and national educational standards and then we roll it out to the educational community specifically and to the public in general."

To do that, SEGway teams professional teachers with scientists and science museum personnel, who have a long-standing history of providing public information, lifelong learning and science education.

"That kind of partnership represents a level of intellectual capital that doesn't often enough find its way into science resources for education," notes Alan Nelson, assistant program manager of the Public Use of Remote Sensing Data Program at Goddard Space Flight Center. "SEGway is important because partnering those three professions is a fantastic way to get current and exceptional scientific material into education."

The flood of current science information flows from the sites' partners: scientists and educators working at the Center for Science Education at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory; UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science; San Francisco Exploratorium; Science Museum of Virginia; National Air and Space Museum; Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute.

The content is Internet-based and adheres to national educational standards. Thus, the materials developed in the various science museums—with their individual ideas, areas of expertise, textures and methodologies—still create a heterogeneous suite of resources to be shared all over the country by teachers selecting just what they need.

If the educator wants to create a module about Mars, the solar system, sun and Earth, sunspots, weather, or light, they can review the complete collection of SEGway modules and choose one or more. For instance, the sunspots module features multimedia interviews with NASA sun-earth connection scientists and a Java applet that allows students to interactively identify sunspot regions by comparing NASA x-rays with visible light images. The educator can choose the whole unit or decide, "Well, those are great ideas, but I want to use this tool, those images and that piece of text" to customize their own light, sunspots, or Mars teaching module.

Educators choose exactly what they want at the SEGway WebMart: a virtual store from which users choose science resources. Diane Kisich, science education specialist at the Center for Science Education at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, noted that "We have significantly revised and updated SEGway along lines suggested to us by teachers and other users; in fact, based on input received, the WebMart concept represents a new phase for SEGway."

Although the resources may be incorporated into what might be called lessons, they are actually modules that augment and support curricula, not replace it. SEGway offers resources to teachers for addressing required curricula subjects in ways that are more engaging than textbooks and chalkboards.

Christian offers this analogy: "Some teachers want to buy the cake; some want to have the recipe; still others want to get the ingredients and start from scratch. SEGway serves all those needs. There are complete lesson modules, module suggestions and individual ingredients. An educator can choose an icon, an interactive unit, a graphic, an image or a piece of text—whatever is needed to augment the lesson plan. They can choose bits and pieces or the complete unit."

To prepare the next generation of a scientifically literate public, it is important to make the most current science information accessible, support science inquiry and create an environment that more closely reflects the processes scientists use in their current research.

SEGway does all that.

For more information, see the SEGway web page or contact the principal investigators Carol Christian, Space Telescope Science Institute or Isabel Hawkins, Center for Science Education at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.

With significant input from Diane Kisich, Anne Miller-Bagwell and Kimberly Dow

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