There needs to be an effort to provide opportunities to nonscience majors in the use and practice of the World Wide Web to prepare them for the future. Allison Miller, former student intern in the NCSA Marketing Communications Division, recently graduated from UIUC with a B.A. in rhetoric. She was awarded the Kerker Quinn Award for Creative Writing by the UIUC Department of Rhetoric. Images used in this story are from the Web site of Astronomy 100, Section 2 students at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Via the World Wide Web, HOU links classrooms to automated telescopes at professional observatories.
Students are able to download images or request new observations.
HOU follows standards set down by national agencies for implementation and teacher support. Carl Pennypacker, a Lawrence Berkeley cosmologist, developed the program out of his research to help reform science education. NSF and the Department of Energy also support the program. Currently used in approximately 30 high schools around the nation, the goal is to expand to as many as 700 sites in middle schools and informal education centers, such as museums. Fran Bond is an editor in the NCSA Publications Group.