Check out the resources available from the UCLA Science Project Visit the Target Science teacher network and see how this teacher-directed network is working to improve science education

Science Meets Technology via UCLA Science Project MICHELE McCARTHY SITS AT HER COMPUTER keyboard and carefully types in a series of figures into a computer program. The biology and general science teacher then scans some photos and facts she has downloaded from the Internet into the same program. With a quick click of the mouse, the computer instantly transforms the data, photos, and facts into a imaginative and informative look at how commercial plane flight paths have changed throughout the past several years directly above the Elizabeth Learning Center in Cudahy. "This is truely wonderful," McCarthy says, remarking on how using a computer has helped make what was once a complicated project as simple as pressing a few keys and turns of the mouse. "This type of project is really an exhibition of your imagination." It could be called science meets technology -- a five day teacher workshop sponsored by the UCLA Science Project that showed teachers ways of enhancing scientific research through the use of computers and other media. "It gives science a whole other dimension," said Patricia Dung, UCLA Science Project co-director, and Los Angeles Educational Partnership science director. "It's a way to interject technology into scientific inquiry, making research and inquiry easier to do and more thorough." The UCLA Science Project identifies, develops, and promotes strategies that make good science instruction accessible to all students, whatever their academic, cultural or socio-economic backgrounds. Programs are designed to support teachers as they strengthen their own science instructional practices, provide resources for schools as they strengthen science programs at schools sites and provide a network for science educators from all levels to share expertise. During the workshop at Elizabeth Learning Center in Cudahy, teachers representing the Target Science teacher network, the Los Angeles Systemic Initiative as well as the Los Angeles, Montebello, Alhambra, and Walnut Valley Unified School Districts, created multimedia presentations with an emphasis on data acquisition, analysis, and reporting. The workshop's purpose was to introduce science educators to the way technology can enhance their scientific inquiry and analysis. By bringing this information into the classroom, students may also benefit by doing their own projects. Science educators created projects illustrating the habitat of the barn owl and the relationship between colors and temperature to rainforest destruction and plant physiology. All projects integrated sounds and images from the Internet and the use of various word processing, graphics, and spreadsheet files to create the final multimedia presentations. "The next step is to introduce this type of inquiry to my students," said Ann Martinez-Davis, a teacher at Middleton Elementary School, who was plotting the weather patterns of four US metropolitan cities. "I think they would have fun collecting the data, downloading information from the Internet and putting it all together. I know I had fun." The UCLA Science Project programs range from a series of workshops for individual schools to full institutes for entire districts.