Using Interactive Video to Increase Science Literacy and Develop Higher Level Thinking Skills In Science and Non-Science Majors

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This project will implement an interactive video laboratory based on IBM and Macintosh computers, CD-ROM and laserdisc players and videodisc for use in undergraduate science education. It focuses on increasing scientific literacy and sophistication among undergraduates, including significant numbers of non-traditional, women and minority students who are typically underrepresented these fields. Faculty will incorporate interactive video technology into teaching in the following areas: biology, chemistry, and physics. The equipment will give students, including elementary and secondary teachers and non-science majors who need to meet science requirements for certification and degree-completion, the opportunity to focus on critical thinking as it relates to scientific study: formulating and testing hypotheses; solving problems; making decisions. Because of the ability of the technology to replicate experiments which faculty could not otherwise do, the equipment will enable students to have a wider variety of laboratory experiences and multiple opportunities to hypothesize, test and revise than conventional laboratory experiments would allow. It would constitute a more "user- friendly" approach to science because it would alleviate fears about working in a laboratory and, particularly for future teachers, it would model for them active learning strategies and use of technology which is becoming widely available in the Kansas City school districts.