WSU Seeks Kids To Get Caught Up In The Web Schools Invited To Submit Science, History Projects

The virtual exhibition hall is filling with science and math projects. Teachers chat in the virtual teachers lounge. Students read notes posted on the virtual bulletin board.

The first on-line science fair is happening on the Internet’s World Wide Web.

Its organizer, a Washington State University educator, is thrilled by its potential. But he’s disappointed more Eastern Washington teachers didn’t show up.

“We sent fliers to every principal and superintendent in the state,” Nils Peterson said. “I don’t know why we didn’t wake up somebody in greater Spokane.”

Most of the 24 teachers taking part are from outside Washington. None are from Spokane.

“Until we can get the hardware and hook up we can’t build (the Internet) into the instructional program,” explained Central Valley School District science coordinator Geoff Praeger, who hadn’t heard about the science fair.

The fair will work like this: Students will conduct experiments like they normally would for a science fair. Instead of setting up their presentations in a gym, they’ll design posters on computers and send them via phone lines to WSU.

At the university, graduate students will add computer coding and post the projects on the Web, the part of the Internet that allows users to see graphics and pictures.

Two Pullman 11-year-olds, Emily Rosenman and Sarah Spaeth, heard about the science fair from their parents. The girls decided to spruce up a project they did last year about the Oregon Trail and enter.

They’ll work on the project at home, not at Lincoln Middle School, where they are sixth-graders.

Louis Nadelson, a teacher at Capital High School in Olympia, said all his 147 students will submit entries. Nadelson, chosen this year by Apple Computer as a distinguished educator, incorporates the Internet into all his science and math classes.

“I feel very comfortable learning along with my students,” Nadelson said. “I don’t feel intimidated not knowing the answers.”

Teachers offered several explanations for the lack of turnout from Spokane.

For some teachers, the beginning of the school year was just too busy a time to start a project. Others hadn’t gotten the word.

“It sounds great,” said Heather Cassidy, a Chase Middle School science teacher who has Internet access through a private grant, but hadn’t heard about the science fair.

“In our building very quickly we’re all going to have access to the Internet,” Cassidy said. “I think teachers are ready for these things.”

A 1994 survey showed 43 percent of Washington schools have Internet access through at least one computer, said Dennis Small, a technology expert in the state superintendent’s office.

About one-third of the state’s school districts lease high-capacity lines for direct connection to the Internet, Small said.

The problem isn’t so much accessibility, he said, but figuring out how to teach teachers how the Internet can enliven their classrooms.

WSU’s Peterson hopes to solve that problem.

Without bricks or bond issues, he built the Virtual Professional Development School, a project to put more educational material on the Internet.

He named himself principal.

“Children need places on the Internet that are appropriate for children,” said Peterson, who designed educational software before joining WSU two years ago.

Peterson’s next on-line project is an interactive dialogue with Northwest explorers Lewis and Clark.

Via computer, history teachers will be able to ‘time travel’ with their students every day to chart the explorers’ progress and ask them questions. WSU education students will impersonate Lewis and Clark, answering questions with information from the explorers’ journals.

Sacajawea, who traveled with the explorers, also will speak to students on-line.

In the spring, the virtual school will host an exposition on Washington history that will work the same way as the science fair.

Virtual ribbons will be awarded in the science fair. Student projects include “Bald Eagle Babies,” “The Symmetry of Origami,” “Mayan Numbers” and “How Big are Your Feet?”

The exhibit hall opens Nov. 6. People with Internet access can visit the science fair’s information booth through WSU’s home page. The address is http://www.educ.wsu.edu. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ON-LINE EXHIBIT The exhibit hall opens Nov. 6. People with Internet access can visit the science fair’s information booth through WSU’s home page. The address is: http://www.educ.wsu.edu.