EDUCATION

The total assemblage of Education team projects, programs, and activities serve as templates from which other projects may be built to address the effort that is needed to revitalize science, math, and technology education in the United States. They touch the future by preparing the next generation of leaders in all fields. Working to bring the advances and benefits of high-performance computing and networking technology to education is no small challenge. Among other questions that must be asked and answered is "when and where does learning take place?" To answer "when," EOT-PACI recognized that the process of learning builds upon the quality and thoroughness of the entire educational experience. Consequently, to achieve an outcome where students' technical and scientific literacy is as great as possible, use of technology and computational tools must be consistent and pervade all levels of education. To answer "where," EOT-PACI considered the processes of both formal and informal education, and sought out programs and activities that occurred not just in the classroom, but also in non-traditional learning settings. The Education team of EOT-PACI is composed of activities, projects, and programs at the K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels. The team also works with life-long learners through informal science education. Based on educational research, the team also assesses the classroom suitability of PACI-developed tools. Here, the team partners with senior specialists in education, PACI scientists, national education leaders, undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, and high school students. FOCUSING ON SYSTEMIC IMPACT What is most important to EOT-PACI is to have a systemic impact on education. But how does this attitude affect the Education programs that are a part of EOT-PACI? Pursuing systemic impact is in keeping with EOT-PACI's mandate to work with education and outreach nationally. The organization has therefore sought out projects that can be easily replicated or that revolve around portable software developed within the PACI program. In this way, the computational infrastructure that Alliance and NPACI are creating is of the greatest benefit to the national community of learners. WORKING WITH STUDENTS, WORKING WITH THE SYSTEM The Education team projects profiled in this section work with one of two populations: With learners directly, or with the system that supports learning. The constitution of these populations represent two different and complementary approaches to impacting education and touching the future. Some team projects work directly with students through a physical or human interface. The students become involved first-hand with the conduct of research or the use of technology. The learning here is immediately tangible and builds upon experience. Other projects work at the system level--they assess needs in the educational environment and work to fill those needs through lessons or tools. These projects will eventually serve as the foundation for other student-centric activities wherein the students engage curricula or a tool in the classroom. Working with educators themselves is important in all of Education team projects, as a lesson or tool is only as good as the teacher who wields it. A challenge to the future of education in the United States and world-over will be to produce educators who are comfortable with technology and who can adapt it to the needs of their classrooms and students. Many EOT-PACI supported activities--both in the Education and other teams--therefore work directly with educators, training them to use technology productively, incorporating their input into the design of software and tools, and working with them to develop curricula or programs at all education levels. Since learning occurs both in and out of the classroom, other Education team projects work with nontraditional learning settings, like museums, science centers, and planetariums. A benefit of working with informal education is that it is within these types of settings that life-long learning occurs, as visitors represent a broad spectrum of ages. Also, since these locations are popular destinations for whole families, the learning that occurs there is reinforced through discussion and interaction of family members both during and after their visit.

Preparing 21st Century Schools for Advanced Technology Chickscope Provides Students with Real Inside Look at Life Science Exposed! The Why Files ChemViz Makes Computational Chemistry Accessible to Students and Teachers Maryland Virtual High School Inspires Excellence in Teaching Professional Development Workshop Exposes Teachers to New Technology Modeling Tools Bolster Undergraduate Education and and Empower University Faculty Transforming Undergraduate Education through High-Performance Computing Technology PACI-REU: Hands-on Experience for Next Generation Researchers Integrating Graduate Students into PACI Research and Development A Mighty River Goes Digital: Visualizing the Mississippi Campus Networks Enable Access to Museum Image Collections