The goal of this project is to develop a pilot program in the field of physics that will use a combination of project-based activities and technology as the main teaching tools to increase the studentâs scientific literacy. The physics teachers in the district will participate in training for the implementation of project-based activities in high school physics through the Physics Resources and Instructional Strategies for Motivating Students (PRISMS) program. This program has proven to be successful in increasing students understanding of physics concepts and in increasing scientific reasoning skills. Once trained, the teachers will begin to implement the program within the district.

In addition to the change in teaching methodology, the teachers will integrate technology into the activities. Led by a teacher currently involved with a masterâs program in curriculum, technology, and educational reform, the teachers will include the use of technology to collect, analyze and communicate information with other students in the district and throughout the world. The teachers will also use technology to enhance communication between students, parents, and teachers.

To assess the effectiveness of the new methodology, the understanding of physics concepts that is gained by the students involved in this program will be compared to the understanding of those students in a traditional physics class. To further assess the effectiveness, the participating studentsâ understanding of the scientific processes will also be compared to the understanding of non-participating students. Based on the success of the program, the change in methodology and integration of technology will be incorporated in to the other science curriculums.

Abstract on provided form:

Proposal Narrative

1. Project Description
   Lake Park High School feels that within Lake Park and across the country students need to be better prepared for their future. Current educational processes are often focused on the memorization of facts, without teaching students to think critically about the information they are gathering. Current processes also leave the student in a passive role in their education. The goal of this pilot program is to change the educational delivery system in our science program to shift the focus from teacher lectures to hands-on activities. This change in methodology has been proven to enhance student interest and involvement in education. The use of engaged learning activities also increases the studentsâ understanding of scientific concepts and allows the students to link these concepts to their own experiences.
   
   With the increased use of technology in the workplace, we feel that it is also necessary to integrate the use of technology into the science curriculum. Rather than the sporadic use of calculators, computers, data acquisition probes and data analysis software. The goal of this program is to fully integrate the use of these technologies as sources of information, methods of communication, and as data analysis tools.
   
   To begin the program, physics teachers in the district will take part in a two week long training workshop on the Physics Resources and Instructional Strategies for Motivating Students (PRISMS) program offered through the University of Northern Iowa. In this workshop, the teachers will gain an understanding of how an activity based curriculum can be successfully implemented in the districtâs physics courses. This workshop will allow the teachers to develop units of instruction, including the activities that will enhance the students understanding of the physics concepts being presented. The PRISMS program has been validated by the NATIONAL DIFFUSION NETWORK (NDN), which was a U.S. Department of Education sponsored clearinghouse of model educational programs. Validation was based on convincing evidence that a program was causing significant and positive changes in a group it is intended to affect. These curriculum programs can be replicated by schools across the nation at a fraction of the original development cost. Also during this training workshop, the teachers will amend and develop problem-based activities that will integrate the use of technology as a source of information, and as a data collection and analysis tool. To assist in the development if these activities, the teachers will receive six hours of intensive, hands-on training in computer and calculator data collection from Vernier Software and Technology, the developer of our data acquisition equipment.
   
   As students are engaging in hands-on learning activities, they will use the technology to gather, analyze, and communicate their findings. The use of data interface equipment, already owned by the district, to gather and analyze data allows for more precise and greater quantities of data for the students. This equipment also allows students to complete more experiments, more efficiently find trends in large quantities of data, and easily communicate their findings through presentations to classmates and to students around the world through the use of the internet. In addition to these advantages, the use of computers as an analysis tool will not only give the students the basics skills in computer usage, but will also provide them with an opportunity to formulate and test hypotheses to better understand the scientific concepts they are studying.
   
   While using technology as a communication tool, teachers will keep in contact with parents and students via a class web sites and email. The use of these tools will provide the support students and parents may need after class. This use also shows students that science education does not only happen for fifty minutes each day but is an ongoing process and that the instructors are willing help them understand the concepts and processes-even outside the classroom. To make it easier for students and parents to contact teachers during the school day and during evening hours, teachers will use AOL Mobile Communicator. This device will allow two way communication via online instant messages. With this device, students can get answers to questions when they need them and parents can easily get in touch with the teacher without the constant "phone tag" that usually occurs.
   
   Students will also use the technology to communicate their scientific data with other students in the class and in other class and possibly other schools. The use of the internet to transfer data across the country and the world is becoming more common in the scientific community and in classrooms as well. During several experiments through out the year, the teachers would attempt to link their classes with classes in other parts of the world, allowing their students to work with other students in other countries to complete scientific investigations. This communication will take place through the web-based conference software, WebBoard. This software will allow participating students to post messages to the other students in their extended lab group to allow for collaborative analysis from and computer with a web connection. In addition to the posting of messages, the software will also allow students to participate in real time chat sessions for a more personal interaction with their group members.
   
   Finally, as the students are involved in these activities, students will not only experience first-hand the tremendous possibilities of science and technology, but will also experience the limitations in current scientific processes. Students will need to learn to work within these limitations or develop new processes that will allow them to carry out the activities as they first intended. In addition, some of the activities will be designed to contain scientific inquiries that will bring up social and ethical issues in which students will have to take and defend their position, which will further develop the link between science and society.
   
   The pilot program will be initiated in five junior level physics classes. Based on the success of the program, the teachers involved in the first year program will act as mentors during the implementation of the change in methodology and integration of technology as it is incorporated into the other science curriculums. The monies from this grant will only be needed for the first year of the program, the costs involved in the integration of the program into the rest of the science curriculum will be covered through revenue from already existing sources.
    
2. Elements of Scientific Literacy
   The first goal of this program is to increase the students understanding of scientific concepts and their ability to perform scientific processes. The increased use of engaged learning activities will allow the students to formulate questions, gather background information and data, analyze the information, and formulate ideas and theories based on their information. Since most of these activities are performed in small groups, students will develop the skills necessary to work and communicate effectively with their partners. Students will be required to use the appropriate scientific terminology to communicate their findings to other in laboratory reports that will be presented to the class or written for the instructor. The activities used in the proposed project will consist of many open-ended scientific investigations, allowing the students to discover the true scientific process of success and failure. As the students use the technology to collect, analyze, and communicate data, they will be introduced to the dependency of scientific discovery on technology and they will develop the ability to use the technology as an effective tool to gather and communicate information.
   
   This program will include five junior-level physics students. Although a total of approximately 110 students will be effected during the initial year of the program, the scope of future implementation will effect almost every student in the district. Throughout the year, faculty involved with the program will discuss and document the effect of the program on the studentâs scientific literacy and the change in the studentsâ attitudes toward science and technology. This documentation process would take place during scheduled bi-weekly meetings throughout the year.
    
3. Responsibilities of Joint Applicants
   Not Applicable.

4. Illinois Learning Standards
   The proposed projectâs use of open-ended scientific investigations will fully address Illinois Learning Goal 11. This goal requires that students formulate their own hypotheses, design experiments to systematically test their hypotheses, and analyze the collected data to develop a report to present to an audience. With the increased use of these types of experiments, students will continually asked to carefully create and engage in investigations that meet the requirements above.
   
   Illinois Learning Standard 12 deals with the understanding the fundamental concepts, principles and interconnections of the life, physical, and earth/space science. The hands-on approach to this program has been proven to foster the better understanding of all scientific concepts. As the students, become more involve in their own education, they learn and retain more information as well as gaining a better understanding of the scientific process. With the full integration of the this program into our entire curriculum, the students will have a better understanding of all branches of science.
   
   With the full integration of technology into the curriculum, this program will address Illinois Learning Standard 13 by showing the interrelationship between the science and technology. Students will gain an understanding of the scientific principles that have led to todayâs current technology and will realize the continuing process of discovery and implementation of new scientific principles that lead to the improvement of technology. The use of investigations that deal with major social and ethical issues will also provide students the opportunity to address these issues and understand the impact of science and technology on society.
    
5. Predicted Benefits
   Participating students will increase their understanding of scientific concepts to a greater degree than non-participating students. The participating students will also have better understanding of the scientific processes than non-participating students. An additional benefit to this program will be the increased ability of participating students to work productively as individuals and as members of groups. A final benefit to this program will be the studentsâ increased ability to use technology as an effective tool for data gathering, data analysis, and communication. During the project, student performance on unit exams, lab reports and presentations will be used to measure the effectiveness of the teaching methodology. In addition, the participating faculty members will meet very two weeks to evaluate the program, including the students attitudes toward the class. The increased interest and participation of parents and students in the educational process through the use of technology will also be measured through a survey. As a final measuring tool, the students will be given a standardized exam to measure their content knowledge and scientific reasoning. The scores on these measuring tools will be compared to the scores of the non-participating students who have taken the class during the past two years.
    
6. Needs That Will Be Addressed
   The science faculty at Lake Park has identified the need to improve our students understanding of science knowledge and scientific reasoning. The faculty has also identified a need to make the science curriculum more interesting to students. We have come to these conclusions based on our observations of student attitudes and the performance of the students on standardized tests. Over the past 9 years, Lake Park students have increased 0.3 pts on the science reasoning portion of the ACT. Over the same time period, the state average has increased 0.6 pts. During the 6 years in which the IGAP test was given, Lake Park students consistently scored lower on the science subtest than other students with the same socio-economic background. These observations have led to the development of this project proposal.
    
7. Support From Current Literature
   "The best way to eliminate na•ve beliefs or misconceptions is to expose them and confront them directly" ö Pintrich, P., Marx, R., and Boyle, R. (1993). Beyond cold conceptual change: The role of motivational beliefs and classroom contextual factors in the process of conceptual change. Review of Educational Research, 63, 167-199.
   
   "To appreciate fully the methodology of science (the development and testing of hypotheses) one must learn science as a problem solving process; that is it must be constructivist in nature rather than a prepackaged curriculum." - Tobin, K., Tippins, D. J., & Gallard, A. J. (1994). Research on instructional strategies for teaching science. In D. L. Gabel (Ed.). Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning (pp. 45-93). New York: Macmillan
   
   "By involving students in inquiry-based activities, we ask them to test what they believe to be true. If the studentâs belief is proven to be incorrect, we have confronted the misconception and the student will continue to search for the truth. Instruction in science must be experience-based within the context of the classroom and must provide a motivation to change" - Bruning, R. H., Schraw, G. J., and Ronning, R. R. (1999). Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
   
   "Real science whether in the laboratory or the classroom depends substantially on the application of good scientific process. By scientific process I do not mean the famous four steps in the scientific method that are drilled into the heads of children from grade 3. Instead I mean the real scientific skills of investigation, critical thinking, imagination, intuition, playfulness, and thinking on your feet and with your hands that are essential to success in scientific research." - Professor James M. Bower, co-director of Caltechâs Precollege Science Initiative
   
   "Employers, policy makers, and educational leaders are starting to agree that all citizens need to be technologically literate to exceed in todayâs world." ö A United Vision: Technology for All Americans ö Journal of Technology Education. Spring, 1996, v7, n2.
    
8. Continuing the Progress
   The training in scientific literacy and project based learning obtained through this project will be shared with other teachers in the department and in the surrounding community through the districtâs increased communication with its feeder schools. The technology obtained from this program will be integrated into the technology already owned by the district. The district has a Technology Plan which is reviewed every year. With the successful implementation of this program, the expansion of the program will be integrated in the plan.