A nationwide science teacher shortage has resulted in a limited science curriculum taught by unqualified teachers for many high school students. The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21^st Century indicated the limited pool of highly qualified science teachers is a primary reason for United States high school students scored near the bottom on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study assessments.¹ The Concord Consortium, a non-profit educational research and development organization, has addressed the need to bring together highly qualified teachers offering diverse and challenging curriculum with students who are seeking a superior academic experience.

The Concord Consortium provides an administrative structure and online learning tools to deliver high school courses to students worldwide. Because the VHS model of online learning draws primarily on asynchronous forms of communication using distance education technologies, students get access to some of the most highly qualified teachers in the world. Advanced Placement Environmental Science is a current VHS course with an instructor who resides in Malaysia and students in various locations around the US and, indeed, throughout the world.

WHAT:

"It just an excellent example of what can be done on-line. A lot of labs done in online courses tend to be cut and dried —what I like to call cookbook labs —but this one is really a [long-term] case study where students examine mealworms for weeks at a time. They create their own experiments where they add more or less water or change the temperature to look at how environmental conditions effect the population" (Tracy Sheehan: VHS Science Curriculum Coordinator)

Although students and the instructor in the VHS Environmental Science course are nearly half a world apart, collaborative inquiry-based learning is the core pedagogy in this course. For example, students purchase mealworms at a local pet shop and conduct experiments to examine the effects of environmental conditions on living organisms. The instructor provides students with a materials list and guidelines for using regular household materials to create an environment and care for mealworm populations. Students also receive procedural directions to help them keep accurate counts of their mealworms during the experiment.

When students have successfully populated the mealworm habitat, they design an experiment to examine the effects of environmental conditions on their ecosystem. Some students study the effects of light while others may focus on moisture or other relevant variables. Throughout this seven-week case study experiment students collaborate using electronic discussion boards to exchange information on what is happening to their mealworm populations as they adjust environmental variables. Students who choose to investigate the same variable often use electronic discussion boards to pool data and improve reliability of their findings. Student inquiry is guided by the instructor —who facilitates communication among students as they discuss their observations and put forth hypotheses about declining or thriving mealworm populations.

The instructor assesses progress by having students take digital pictures of their mealworm environments, data collection processes, and results. Photos are uploaded to the course website. Students also keep an electronic reflective journal to record observational data during their case study experiments. Lab reports are also uploaded to document students' independent investigations. Finally, student learning is assessed through an online exam taken when the unit is complete.

Advanced Placement Environmental Science provides an example of a high quality science lab that is conducted at a distance. Students engage in ongoing guided collaborative learning with a highly-qualified environmental science teacher. Guided collaborative learning design is pedagogically superior to other on line learning designs because it is based on social constructivist learning principles that include having learners create their own understandings through group conversations.² The Environmental Science course incorporates inquiry-based learning —the pedagogy for teaching science recommended by the National Science Standards which aim to produce students who are equipped with the skills necessary to cope with the scientific and technological advances of the 21^st century.
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HOW?

"The instructor does not need to send out any materials, he is in Malaysia and he is teaching this to students at my high school in West Borough, MA in the US. This lab is central to his course —yet it was as simple as purchasing mealworms that other people are feeding to their reptiles." (Tracy Sheehan: VHS Science Curriculum Coordinator)

Like all courses in the VHS, Advanced Placement Environmental Science uses the online course development and delivery tool Blackboard.com to facilitate communication among students and between students and the instructor. The instructor uses the course website to communicate information to students including making announcements, providing instructions and materials lists for upcoming experiments, directing students to informational websites for background reading, and reminding students of deadlines and due dates for assignments and tests.

The instructor also creates forums for online discussions that allow general discussions about course topics —or for groups of students to communicate amongst themselves using a private small-group discussion board. Blackboard.com also provides a quiz generator that allows the instructor to give students access to a quiz for a designated period of time, automatically grades them, and enters student scores into the instructors online grade book.

What is most unique about this particular course is that the instructor supplies no print texts or traditional materials. Students receive all the information they need to conduct and learn from their experiments through web resources and engage in asynchronous electronic discussions between students and instructor online. Authentic experimentation and scientific inquiry provide the core experiences in this online Advanced Placement Environmental Science course.

Footnotes:
1. Glenn, J. [Commission Chairman] (2000) Before its too late: The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21^st Century. Retrieved December 23, 2004 at: http://www.ed.gov/inits/Math/glenn/index.html

2. Haavind, S., Rose, R., Galvis, A., & Tinker, R. (2002). Online courses that work... and some that don't. The Concord Consortium Newsletter, 6(1). Retrieved December 22, 2004 at: http://www.concord.org/newsletter/2002winter/online_courses.html

Thanks to Tracy Sheehan and the Virtual High School for their help.

This case developed by:
Dale Niederhauser, Ph.D. and Denise Lindstrom, M. S
Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching
Iowa State University

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Case Studies
Web Links:
The Concord Consortium: http://www.concord.org
Virtual High School: http://www.govhs.org/website.nsf
Blackboard: http://www.blackboard.com/

'Good Practice to Inform Iowa Learning Online' case studies were developed by the Center for Teachnology in Learning and Teaching at
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Last updated: January 2005