Students join discussion lists, search Web sites of research institutions, and comb through data sets to learn about their topics. From the beginning, the AiS program staff has worked to develop a complete curriculum and to provide a range of resources and supports that enable students and teachers to succeed with the AiS program. Teachers attend intensive, two-week long summer workshops when they begin participating in the program, and they return for shorter workshops every summer thereafter. The Department of Energy provides Internet connections, at 56 kilobytes, for the computers it supplies. It also provides access to a supercomputer to support compiling, running parallel programs, and general Internet access.
Technical support is provided on an ongoing basis throughout the program for participating teachers.
AiS simply could not happen without adequate and appropriate technology being available to the participating schools. In addition, the program staff support these teachers throughout the life of the program, with professional development and technical support. Consequently, students are able to produce project work that addresses complex problems of the students own devising and to develop substantive understanding, over time, of their areas of inquiry. The presentations were systematically examined for variations in learning based on a range of demographic and contextual data. Using performance-based assessment measures, students project presentations were videotaped according to a standardized format.