A Case Study of Open-Ended Scientific Inquiry in a Technology-Supported Classroom

The Learning Through Collaborative Visualization Project (CoVis) is building an educational testbed to reform science education. The CoVis learning community uses next-generation technologies for collaboration and scientific visualization to support community formation and work-activities in high school science classrooms. An important project design goal is to create activities centered on more open-ended project-based scientific inquiries that are, at least in part, born of the students own interests and situated in the greater scientific and political world. Through a case study of a global warming unit we look to see if students appropriate the data, techniques of analysis, rules of proof, and the means to assess uncertainty held by the community around which they are basing their investigation.