Collaborative Research: CI-TEAM Demo: Harnessing Cyberinfrastructure for K-12 STEM Education

马萨诸塞州绿色高性能计算中心(MGHPCC)正在霍利约克建设，霍利约克是康涅狄格河畔的一个古老的磨坊小镇，过去曾享有繁荣的工业历史，最近由于制造业的衰落而经历了一段艰难的过去。在霍利奥克？S丰富和低成本水电的吸引下，波士顿大学、哈佛大学、麻省理工学院、东北大学和马萨诸塞州大学五所主要大学组成的财团，与EMC、思科和马萨诸塞州联邦合作，正在建设MGHPCC，一个耗资1.68亿美元的最先进的高性能计算中心。MGHPCC联盟和州政府坚定地致力于让该中心成为一个“创新区”，这将振兴霍利约克的经济，并为社区创造教育机会。与此同时，马萨诸塞州大学和该市成立了斯普林菲尔德倡议，以解决教育和经济问题。利用利用这些活动和合作伙伴关系的机会，马萨诸塞州大学阿默斯特分校和麻省理工学院执行这一示范项目，以利用新中心的云计算能力，为霍利奥克/斯普林菲尔德地区的K-12 STEM教育服务-为州、地区和国家提供模式。这项工作正在开发一个易于使用的学生界面，使学生能够在STEM课程中轻松访问MGHPCC云。麻省理工学院开发了虚拟互动教科书(VIT)，这是一种新的教育工具，为学生进行计算实验提供支持，以研究天气和气候变化等自然现象。VITS允许学生在小规模设备上设置模拟实验参数，然后可以在云中运行，返回结果供学生评估并纳入更广泛的项目作业。马萨诸塞州大学阿默斯特分校的几个小组合作开发了一种名为电子集成图书(EIB)的技术，它是从一个成功的在线作业系统演变而来的。该项目的一个主要目标是将VIT的力量与EIB的评估驱动型范式结合起来，VIT是一种提供访问云计算能力的交互式实验范式，它让学生在阅读课文时逐步实践新概念。在EIB框架内，他们调用VIT风格的实验，并让EIB捕获并存储这些活动的结果，供教师检查。团队成员在科学教育环境中利用技术进行认知和学习、开发数字学习环境以及将文化和语言不同的城市青少年(特别是非洲裔美国人)的技术、语言和识字做法结合起来方面拥有关键的专业知识。与霍利奥克/斯普林菲尔德学校的密切联系将加强努力，完善由麻省理工学院大气科学家正在开发的现有STEM课程支持材料，这些材料将使用新的技术平台。作为一个团队，我们将在课堂上部署和评估这一应用程序，评估学习结果，并评估整个项目。在第二年，我们将为整个区域的教师举办讲习班，以传播成果并招募新用户。智力上的功绩。HPC数据中心能够进行复杂的科学模拟，但K-12学生和教师不容易访问这些中心。利用嵌入评估平台的云计算代表了一种新的科学教学方法。许多科学现象不容易在课堂实验中重现，所以课堂实验只能接近真实世界。学生可以使用建模工具进行计算实验(在教学合理的情况下)，这些建模工具可以非常接近真实世界的过程和他们的课堂实验对手。这项工作将产生一个超越现有教科书和电子书的创新教学平台。更广泛的影响。技术和教育模块可以在许多科学领域的许多场景中应用。这个团队将专注于开发可以包括在常规高中/中学课程中的模块，帮助学生在科学原理和关系之间建立联系。这应该会增加人们对科学的兴趣，并增加高等教育中理科专业的招生人数。这些系统还可以在博物馆和图书馆等非正式场所使用，以提高公众对天气和气候问题的认识。这为将霍利奥克(77%拉丁裔/a)和斯普林菲尔德(22%非裔美国人和31%西班牙裔)K12学生人口纳入计算机和STEM教育管道提供了机会。

The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) is being constructed in Holyoke, an old mill town on the Connecticut River that enjoyed a thriving industrial past and that has experienced a difficult recent past due to the decline of manufacturing. Attracted by Holyoke?s abundant and low-cost hydroelectric power, a consortium of five major universities - Boston University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts, in partnership with EMC, Cisco and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - are constructing the MGHPCC, a $168M state-of-the-art high performance computing center. The MGHPCC Consortium and the State are strongly committed to having the center anchor an "Innovation District" that will revitalize the economy of Holyoke and create educational opportunities for the community. At the same time, UMass and the City formed a Springfield Initiative to address education and economic issues. Using the opportunity to leverage these events and partnerships, UMass Amherst and MIT execute this demonstration project to harness the cloud computing capabilities of the new center in service of K-12 STEM education in the Holyoke/Springfield area - providing a model for the state, region and the nation. This effort is developing an easy-to-use student interface allows students to easily access the MGHPCC cloud in STEM curricula. MIT developed the Virtual Interactive Textbook (VIT) - a new educational tool that provides support for students running computational experiments in order to study natural phenomena such as weather and climate change. VITs allow students to set up simulation experiment parameters on small scale devices that can then be run "in the cloud", returning the results for the students to assess and incorporate into broader project assignments. Several groups at UMass Amherst have collaborated on the development of a technology called the Electronic Integrated Book (EIB), which evolved from a successful online homework system. A major goal of this project is to combine the power of the VIT, which is an interactive, experimental paradigm providing access to the computational power of the cloud, with the assessment-driven paradigm of the EIB, which engages students as they read the text in the incremental practice of new concepts. Within the EIB framework they invoke VIT-style experiments, and have the EIB capture and store the results of these activities for the teacher to examine. Team members have critical expertise in cognition and learning with technology in science education settings, in the development of digital learning environments, and in integrating technology, language and literacy practices of culturally and linguistically diverse urban adolescents (particularly African Americans). Close ties to the Holyoke/Springfield schools will enhance the effort to refine existing STEM curricular support materials being developed by MIT atmospheric scientists that will use the new technology platforms. As a team, we will deploy and evaluate this application in classrooms, assess learning outcomes and evaluate the overall project. In year 2 we will host workshops for teachers throughout the region to disseminate the results and recruit new users. Intellectual Merit. HPC data centers are capable of sophisticated scientific simulations, but these are not easily accessible to K-12 students and teachers. Exploiting cloud computing embedded in an assessment platform represents a new approach to teaching science. Many scientific phenomena are not easy to reproduce in a classroom experiment so experiments in the classroom only approximate the real world. Students can carry out computational experiments (in a pedagogically-sound context) using modeling tools that can closely approximate both real world processes and their classroom experiment counterparts. This work will result in an innovative teaching platform that moves beyond present textbooks and eBooks. Broader Impacts. The technology and educational modules can be applied in many scenarios in many areas of science. This team will focus on developing modules that can be included in regular high/middle school curricula that will help students make the connection between principles and relations in science. This should lead to increased interest in science and an increase intake in science majors in higher education. The systems can also be used in informal settings such as museums and libraries to raise public awareness of weather and climate issues. This is providing an opportunity to bring the Holyoke (77% Latino/a) and Springfield (22% African-American and 31% Hispanic) K12 student population into the computing and STEM education pipeline.