AN INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE SHELL FOR EXPERIMENT SIMULATION IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

WE PROPOSE TO DEVELOP THE RUDIMENTS, IN PHASE I, OF A SOFTWARE SHELL THAT WILL ALLOW TEACHERS AND OTHERS INTERESTED IN SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION TO CONSTRUCT SPECIFIC SCIENTIFIC "EXPERIMENTS" ON PERSONAL COMPUTERS. THE SHELL WILL INCORPORATE A GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE, ALREADY DEVELOPED IN PREVIOUS WORK, GRAPHICS FILES, AND OTHER STORAGE AND PRESENTATION UTILITIES IN A WAY THAT DRAMATICALLY STREAMLINES THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING SPECIFIC PROGRAMS ON SCIENTIFIC TOPICS. THE RESULTING PROGRAMS OR EXPERIMENTS WILL, BY VIRTUE OF THE BUILT-IN UTILITIES AND SIMULATION PACKAGES, PROVIDE LIVELY INTERACTIVE PROGRAMS THAT STUDENTS CAN USE TO EXPLORE SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS IN A NON-THREATENING, SELF-PACED MANNER. THE SHELL WE WILL DEVELOP WILL SERVE AS A SOFTWARE TOOL THAT CAN BE MADE BROADLY AVAILABLE, MUCH AS EXPERT LANGUAGE SHELLS ARE NOW WIDELY USED TO CONSTRUCT USER-SPECIFIC PROGRAMS. WE WILL WORK WITH THE NORTH CAROLINA SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS ALLIANCE TO IDENTIFY TEACHERS WHO WILL HELP US DESIGN AND EVALUATE THE SYSTEM.