From e-Science for Children to e-Services for Educators

We provided teachers and young scientists with ‘e-Science like’ experiences and asked them to reflect on how the technologies employed might be used to support learning at school. Our aim was to scope the kinds of services that might facilitate contact and collaboration between schools and science researchers. We ran five sessions each involving live communication with remote scientists, use of mobile sensing equipment to gather and submit local pollution data for visualisation and analysis and the investigation of a remote sensing device in the Antarctic. On the basis of this experience, we are beginning to define some e-Services, which would help science teachers to bring real research and researchers into the classroom. Such services provide opportunities for learner-directed learning. However, we believe their real value is their potential to bridge the gap between school science and university research ‐ broadening awareness, changing attitudes and possibly motivating learners towards scientific research.