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March 15, 2001
A Partnership That Makes Sense
By: Susan McLester
How do you keep a third-grader up past her bedtime? Log on to www.exploratorium.com. There, she can calculate her weight on Venus and her age on Mercury, or zoom in for a close-up of Mars' milk chocolatey, swirled surface, scarred with ancient dark craters, rift valleys, and ridges. She can find out the word Saturday comes from Saturn, whose rings contain miniature moons; that Neptune's winds rage at 2,000 kilometers per hour; and that Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. She can examine sunspots through the lens of an ultraviolet imaging telescope, against backgrounds of emerald green, cobalt, and gold. She can build a Solar System model or watch an ice-blue aurora dance across the night sky. Or she can simply see what the Exploratorium's Webcam sees: ducks on the pond outside the building or the procession of car headlights as they move down the boulevard in San Francisco's Marina district.
This is the trip I took with my daughter Hannah the other night, as I went online to check out some of the museums Jean Shields talks about in this month's cover feature, "Museum-School Connections in the Digital Age"
It was heartening to see how many sites now feature fascinating interactive tours, kid-friendly activities, Webcasts, online versions of their regular exhibits, and lesson plans for teachers. It's a whole new universe of learning opportunities for kids and educators alike.
Of those I visited, the Exploratorium, with 10,000-plus pages, was most impressive. In addition to the Astronomy section we investigated, there are numerous other data- and image-rich areas for adults and kids of different ages.
For teachers, there are carefully designed lesson plans which combine hands-on activities with higher-order thinking skills and a direct tie-in to the Exploratorium's online material. In one, students build a magnetometer to monitor changes in the Earth's magnetic field from their classroom. In another, they explore the nature of sunspots and the history of humankind's attempts to understand them.
The morning came early for my daughter after that night on the Exploratorium's Astronomy playground. But I've rarely seen Hannah, who tends to be casual about school, so intrigued and hungry to learn more. It was a strong reminder of how powerful a well-crafted partnership between a museum's rich content and today's technology can be.
Also in this month's issue, we bring you the latest on the recent legislation requiring filtering for many Internet-connected schools. At the end of that News Extra we point you to techLearning.com, where, beginning March 15, we'll be featuring an Ask the Expert forum to give you an opportunity to participate in an ongoing discussion around this controversial issue.
Finally, we've spotlighted some coming attractions from the Technology & Learning SchoolTech Expo 2001, www.SchoolTechExpo.com, taking place March 28-31 in New York City. If you plan to be there, please stop by our booth and say hello-we'd love to meet you in person.
Read other articles from the March issue
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