Online Experiments for Multidisciplinary Instruction in Environmental and Ecological Science

跨学科(99)万维网已经成为远程教育的主要媒介。网络技术现在正在扩展到实验室科学领域，使仪器可以通过网络访问，甚至可以远程控制。因此，理科学生可以使用其他方式无法获得的仪器，或者使用更有限的仪器。这些技术是为物理科学和工程学的本科生科学教学而开发的，但在其他科学学科中相对较少使用。这些努力的最著名例子涉及具有相当技术专长的科学家和程序员团队。这个项目正在扩大这些技术应用的学科范围。我们正在向化学、生物和心理学的学生教授环境和生态科学，使用的是可以通过网络浏览器访问和控制的仪器。我们正在拓宽学生可以通过使用计算机自动获取数据来进行的实验类型，特别是研究发生在一段比标准实验室课程长得多的时间内的现象。让这些仪器可以在网上访问，就可以在不在实验室的情况下对实验进行定期监测。校内外的学生都能够利用这些能力，从而扩大了在这些领域进行实验教学的受众。我们正在使用LabVIEW和AppletVIEW软件将我们的仪器放在网上。我们发现这些软件包对于理科学生和几乎没有接受过计算机科学正式培训的教职员工来说都相对容易使用。因此，我们可以在没有额外训练有素的人员的情况下实现我们的目标。可通过网络访问的仪器正被用于环境化学，以测量淡水中pH的自然调节所涉及的变化。环境科学专业的学生正在测量水生系统的生物健康(监测溶解氧、硝酸盐、二氧化碳等)。在人类经常要为之负责的扰动之后，例如温度升高、营养物质的添加或污染物的污染。研究动物行为的学生正在监测获取食物的各种行为选择之间的努力分配，从而衡量选择及其在一段时间内觅食效率中的作用。所有这些课程的学生都积极参与实验设计，并使用计算机分析和绘制结果数据。高级本科生被用来帮助编程和监督这些实验。由于通过与教育服务中心的合作安排招募的高中生也在学习这些课程，这些高级本科生从事的教学角色将给他们提供宝贵的职前教学经验。他们还有机会与高中理科老师互动。不同教育水平的学生之间的互动为学生创造了许多相互教授的机会，从而加强了他们自己的学习。在学习科学这一主题的同时，各级学生也在欣赏当代技术中计算机化数据获取和远程访问仪器的非凡可能性。

Interdisciplinary (99) The World Wide Web has become a major medium for distance learning. Web technologies are now being extended into laboratory science by making instruments accessible via the Web and even controllable remotely. Science students can thereby use instruments that would be otherwise unavailable or of much more limited availability. These technologies have been developed for undergraduate science instruction in the physical sciences and engineering but have been relatively little used in other scientific disciplines. The best known examples of these efforts have involved teams of scientists and programmers with considerable technical expertise.This project is extending the range of disciplines in which these technologies are being used. We are teaching environmental and ecological science to chemistry, biology, and psychology students using instruments that are accessible and controllable with a Web browser. We are broadening the types of experiments that students can do by using computers to automate data acquisition, especially to investigate phenomena that occur over a period of time that is much longer than a standard laboratory session. Making these instruments accessible on the Web allows regular monitoring of experiments without being in the laboratory. Students both on and off campus are able take advantage of these capabilities, thus widening the audience for laboratory instruction in these areas.We are using LabVIEW and AppletVIEW software to make our instruments available on the Web. We find these software packages relatively easy to use for both science students and faculty with little formal training in computer science. Hence, we can accomplish our goals without additional highly trained personnel. Web-accessible instruments are being used in environmental chemistry to measure the changes involved in the natural regulation of pH in fresh waters. Environmental science students are measuring the biological health of aquatic systems (monitoring dissolved oxygen, nitrate, carbon dioxide, etc.) after perturbations for which humans are often responsible, such as temperature elevations, addition of nutrients, or contamination with pollutants. Students studying animal behavior are monitoring the allocation of effort among various behavioral alternatives for obtaining food, thus measuring choice and its role in the efficiency of foraging over time. Students in all these courses are actively involved in the design of experiments and use computers to analyze and graph the resulting data.Advanced undergraduates are being used to assist in programming and supervising theseexperiments. Because high school students, recruited through a collaborative arrangementwith an education service center, are also taking these courses, these advanced undergraduates are engaged in teaching roles that will give them valuable pre-serviceteaching experience. They also have opportunities to interact with high school science teachers. Interactions among students at a variety of levels of education are creating numerous opportunities for students to teach each other and, thereby, to enhance their own learning. While they are learning the subject matter of science, students at all levels are also appreciating the remarkable possibilities in contemporary technologies of computerized data acquisition and remote access to instruments.