THE 1990 JOINT EDUCATION INITIATIVE (JEdI) An Agent of Change for Education By James D. Sproull Why do we need change? Within the past ten years, many studies, reports, and commissions have described a need for a restructuring of the secondary school curriculum. While declaring that our nation has failed to meet our needs, A Nation at Risk, 1983, suggested major curriculum, standards, and teaching reforms. In 1986 the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy called for reform in the quality and evaluation of teaching in our schools and suggested plans for the restructuring of schools to enable teachers to teach more effectively. Ernest Boyer in 1983 presented an agenda for national reform of education specifying a core curriculum with an emphasis on the study of mathematics and the impact of technology. Science education has not gone unscathed. In 1983 the Carnegie Corporation in its Education and Economic Progress. Toward a National Educational Policy: The Federal Role, recommended increasing general scientific awareness as well as stimulating scientific involvement in curriculum development. The culminating study and subsequent document pertaining to science and mathematics education was distributed in 1989 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In that year, PROJECT 2061 and its supporting book Science for All Americans proposed broad changes in education. In showing the need for curriculum change, it first posed the question "What should every American high school graduate know by the return of Comet Halley?" In its introduction it summarizes the past decade of curriculum studies: "A cascade of recent studies has made it abundantly clear that by both national standards and world norms, U.S. education is failing to adequately educate enough students- and hence failing the nation. By all accounts, America has no more urgent priority than the reform of education in science, mathematics, and technology." On a global scale, the lack of scientific literacy is made clear by our lack of knowledge and understanding of our relationships to our planet and its inhabitants. This lack of scientific literacy has a farther reaching effect upon us than our inability to decide whether or not to build on a flood plain. In a speech to the 1989 International Geological Congress, later reprinted in the Journal of Geological Education, E-an Zen, U.S. Geological Survey Scientist Emeritus, made this observation: "During the time we sit here to discuss science education, it is likely that another species will have become extinct somewhere because of man's arrogance, complacency and ignorance." There should be little argument that science education needs to keep up with scientific and technological advances. Irrespective of the above arguments, the teaching of science should always be evolving, a reflection of science itself. The United States however has not always kept up; although this country is a leader in scientific and technological advances, within the classroom the standard medium of presentation is still the blackboard. SCIENCE FOR ALL AMERICANS asks that in changing curriculum the following be considered: (excerpted) * "To ensure scientific literacy of all students, curricula must be changed to reduce the sheer amount of material covered; to weaken or eliminate rigid subject matter boundaries; to pay more attention to the connections among science, mathematics, and technology; to present the scientific endeavor as a social enterprise that strongly influences-and is influenced by-human thought and action; and to foster scientific ways of thinking." * "The effective teaching of science, mathematics, and technology (or any other body of knowledge and skills) must be based on learning principles ... . Moreover, teaching related to scientific literacy needs to be consistent with the spirit and character of scientific inquiry and scientific values. ..." The JEdI project seeks to address some of these concerns. As the JEdI activities were developed, curriculum boundaries disappeared leaving a common thread. That commonality is to observe, mark, and analyze change found in its different forms and its impact upon human activities and the Earth. Instead of studying about a particular subject, e.g., a meteorological and oceanographic event called coastal flooding, students are asked to analyze coastal flooding's impact upon a particular area, predict its disturbance of human activities, and speculate about costs and risks. JEdI activities have been developed around PROJECT 2061's theme of change and how change weaves its way through science, the earth, and our lives. While creating these activities, the JEdI participants easily and naturally employed an inquiry approach. Instead of presenting facts or requiring students to find and list facts, the activities suggest that questions be asked and answered: What are the changes in Antarctic sea ice over a two year period? What could be the additional element in this spectrum? What are the relationships between the ozone levels for Washington D.C. (or your hometown) and the Antarctic? Because there is such an enormous amount of information added to the curriculum each year, teachers are swamped and foundering. What is to be taken out, added to, or changed in the curriculum? Compounding this problem, the edge in information transfer that we hold and enjoy in other areas of our society is now outmoded and outdated and could even be argued is an embarrassment to our educational community. As a teacher of Earth Science for the past thirteen years, I have always been frustrated and troubled by information transfer problems. In the past, science teachers have displayed pictures from magazines, photocopied newspaper articles, and have distributed serendipitous "give aways" from government agencies such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey. Accessing and using current data and images has become a major task for today's science teacher. Many teachers are now ready and willing to take the risks associated with using "raw and unedited" (relative to today's science classroom or laboratory investigations) datasets. Although this is not a comfortable step for a teacher to take, the interest by teachers and rationale of scientific pedagogy is undeniable. With the introduction of CD-ROM technology and powerful classroom computers paired with high resolution monitors, the problem of accessing data will be changed to one of managing data. Students will learn first hand how remotely sensed images are built, science projects will be enhanced, and teachers will have to learn the technologies of data analysis which scientists use on a daily basis. How does the JEdI Project encourage change? The Joint Education Initiative (JEdI) project is designed to empower education, teachers, and students with real and current scientific data. Datasets, made available from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), have been given to education. These datasets, through the medium of CD-ROM technology and powerful desktop computers, have the potential of changing our way of teaching. Making available what scientists use on a daily basis, i.e., image enhancement techniques, the teachers in the summer JEdI workshop have developed classroom activities which will utilize the power of these technological features and enable teachers to bring scientific research datasets to the classroom. PROJECT HISTORY During the early part of 1990, the USGS initiated a feasibility study of the JEdI project. With the cooperation of NASA and NOAA, approximately 30 teachers from the Washington, DC area were given opportunities to become familiar with many of these datasets. After these "test drives," teachers, scientists, and project leaders met to decide two issues: 1) should JEdI continue and 2) if it continued, what datasets should be made available to teachers. At this meeting, the participating teachers expressed their overwhelming approval for the project and suggested a range of datasets to be included on the JEdI discs. From this response, Nimbus Information Systems agreed to press three discs instead of what was initially expected to be only one. That agreement meant that the project now had the capability of accessing 2100 megabytes of scientific information. The Workshop: From its initial stages, teachers have been actively involved. During the February and March "test drives," teachers worked along with scientists to develop and enhance the available datasets. Teachers were involved in selecting the datasets, in determining their depth and scope, and in designing the 1990 JEdI Teachers Summer Workshop. Twenty participants were selected from a national pool of interested candidates. These teachers were given the task of designing classroom activities around the datasets. Some of the unique aspects of the workshop for the teachers were: * Three graduate credits in Remote Sensing Applications from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; * Experience using a powerful desktop computer; * Access to real, comprehensive, and complete scientific datasets; * Ability to work directly with scientists, develop activities, discuss the scientists' research, and engage in a mentor relationship; * Publication, through the USGS, of the activities they had developed. The workshop, for the most part, was unfunded. Most teachers traveled at their own expense, project people opened their homes to out-of-town participants, and computers were loaned by Tandy Corporation. Contribution from the Virginia State Department of Education supported field trips and some meals. At the conclusion of the summer workshop, Sun Moon Star Computer Systems announced a donation of CD-ROM computer systems, one for each participant. These systems were delivered in the fall of 1990 and are presently being used in participants' classrooms. JEdI OBJECTIVES JEdI project team developed the following objectives: * Implementation of CD-ROM technology into education on a national basis; * Implementation of NOAA, NASA, and USGS datasets into school curricula; * Parallel alignment of these activities to the American Association for the Advancement of Science Project 2061 goals; * Increased and ongoing industry support; * Cross discipline and multi-grade approach in designing and implementing the JEdI activities. * Demonstrate the need for powerful computers in the classroom environment; * Encourage the availability of computers in the classroom; * Demonstrate the need for teacher preparation in the use of remote sensing, imaging processing and computers as scientific tools. A successful JEdI project will enable students and teachers to augment the school learning environment. This enrichment of the learning process and science will have far-reaching effects. It is conceivable that in the future students will be able to access this information in the classroom, libraries, and even in the home. This universality of scientific datasets will make an impact on how science is viewed; science will become something that is knowable but still mysterious and unpredictable. REFERENCES Boyer, E., 1983, High school: a report on secondary education in America, Harper and Row, New York. _____1983, Education and economic progress. Toward a national educational policy: the federal role, Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York. _____1983, A nation at risk: the imperative for educational reform, The National Commission on Excellence in Education, U. S. Department of Education, Washington, D. C.. _____1986, A nation prepared: teachers for the 21 st century, Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, Task Force on Teaching as a Profession, New York. _____1989, Science for all Americans, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D. C.. Zen, E., 1990, Science literacy and why it is important, Journal of Geological Education, v. 38, no. 5, pp 463-466.