Tuesday, November 12, 2002

WRITER: Michael Childs, 706/542-5889, mchilds@coe.uga.edu
CONTACT: Ken Hay, 706/542-3157, khay@coe.uga.edu

UGA EDUCATION RESEARCHERS BRING VIRTUAL SOLAR SYSTEM PROGRAM
TO BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF ATHENS THROUGH NOVEMBER 21

ATHENS, Ga. — Space. 2002. Or is it?

Some lucky Athens youngsters will find themselves zooming through outer space, but they’ll never actually leave the ground. The solar system has been squeezed into a new computer program for a group of students attending a special after-school program through Nov. 21 on the University of Georgia campus.

Twenty youngsters attending a program sponsored by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Athens will get a rare opportunity to experience first-hand the creation of a virtual solar system through a computer program run by UGA education researchers.

The Virtual Solar System (VSS) software will allow the fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade students to create and explore their own solar system as they learn about planetary motion and light, said Kenneth Hay, director of the project and a research scientist in the Learning and Performance Support Lab (LPSL) at UGA’s College of Education.

The VSS allows learners to collect information, create dynamic 3-D models of the solar system on the computer, and then explore other areas, such as the phases of the moon, eclipses and seasons. This inquiry-based approach helps learners develop a deeper understanding of astronomy — one that goes far beyond a traditional descriptive or observational level.

Learners enter their solar system and explore phases in new ways: What does a crescent moon look like from the moon looking at the Earth? Does the Earth have phases? What do they look like? The project combines the use of modeling tools to transform the textbook nature of astronomy education into new education where learners are developing 3-D models.

"The models are runnable, so students can see if their ideas really work and if they don’t — what their limitations might be and explore how they might change them," said Hay.

The program involves a group of Athens-area teachers who are learning how to use the Virtual Solar System program and other advanced learning technologies developed at the LPSL.

The teachers are apprenticing with the UGA researchers by working with two to three students on the VSS program and curriculum. This will give the teachers invaluable practice with how real students interact and learn with new educational technologies. Armed with these experiences, teachers can modify and customize the new approaches developed at UGA so they can meet their own classroom needs.

"We no longer develop new learning technologies and ‘throw them over the school fence.’ Our approach is to introduce teachers to the science, pedagogy and technology, then give them an apprenticeship experience in how we envision it working in a classroom context. We can then support them as they take the core ideas and customize them to meet the local needs and curriculum," said Hay.

Three UGA education faculty members and five graduate students will run the project. The software was developed by Cybernet, Inc.

The current project is a spin-off of a VSS project on campus in collaboration with J. Scott Shaw, a professor of physics and astronomy at UGA. But this project is different than most virtual reality educational projects.

"Instead of going into the virtual space to learn from someone else’s model, learners will go into the virtual space to create and test their own models. The construction and testing of their models is where we believe the greatest learning is possible," said Hay.

The VSS program is part of research funded by a $1.07 million National Science Foundation grant. Hay, an assistant professor in the LPSL, is directing the project, along with Lynn Bryan and Norm Thomson, both associate professors in science education.

Hay’s career has included research and development in a diverse range of advanced applications of technology to learning. His earlier work included robotics for severely physically disabled students to enable them to conduct science experiments; real-time weather map and movie Internet service BlueSkies; and student composition of multimedia documents.



NOTE TO EDITORS: The final two VSS programs are scheduled Nov. 14 and Nov. 21 from 5 to 7 p.m. in room 611 of Aderhold Hall on the UGA campus.

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