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Chickscope Overview:Discussion on Chickscope Across K-12 Classrooms 
This is a summary discussion on the Chickscope project. To provide a participating teacher's perspective, a review of Chickscope project integration in a ninth grade biology curriculum is also provided by S. L. Herricks. This summary covers the following five areas:
Learning a new approach to using the Internet. The goal for the Chickscope project was not only to provide students and teachers with access to the MRI system over the Internet, but also to provide them with the supporting infrastructure that is usually reserved for scientists. Furthermore, we wanted to explore how this project could be integrated in classrooms across K-12 in light of the current science education reform initiatives that recommend the use of Internet for learning and teaching (e.g., Hunter, 1995; Linn, 1992). Based on student and teacher feedback, the project was well received, particularly in lower grades because this was the students' first introduction to doing science on the Internet for an extended period (e.g., at least 21 days). The access to remote scientific instruments using basic Internet tools from the classrooms offer opportunities for K-12 students and teachers to participate in collaborative research and data analysis. In addition to Chickscope, there are other K-12 projects that use the Internet for controlling scientific instruments. For example, the MicroObservatory is an interesting project at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where a network of five automated telescopes can be controlled over the Internet by students and teachers. Currently, educators nationwide are testing this network of telescopes and developing activities for the classrooms. Lessons learned from the Chickscope project relating to the Internet include the following:
Implications of new Internet-based technologies for K-12 outreach include the following:
Nature of the scientific enterprise There has been considerable interest in making tools used by scientists available to students and teachers in classrooms. The metaphor often used to illustrate this is that of building a bridge between the classroom and the laboratory. One aspect of the scientific community that is often overlooked in this bridge building concept is that most scientists do not work alone. For example, a laboratory may have a group of scientists with different areas of expertise working together on a project. Laboratory staff may include graduate students, undergraduate students, technicians, etc. One of the objectives of the Chickscope project was to provide a supporting scientific community for the classrooms. Early analyses tells us that Chickscope was successful in terms of immersing students and teachers in a small scientific community (Bruce et al., 1997). Students and teachers learned much about how to collect and analyze data, how to ask questions, and how to communicate their findings with others. They also had opportunities to interact with experts from several disciplines, such as MR imaging, developmental biology, curriculum and instruction, and computer science. The access to unique scientific resources and expertise provided the students with motivation for learning science and stimulated interest in the scientific enterprise. A surprising result of this project is the continuing sustained use of the Web materials by the participating classrooms (as well as by classrooms that did not originally participate in the project, or had access to the MRI system remotely). Imaging on the Web and interpreting of scientific data Each classroom had access to the MRI twice a week for 20 minutes, except the after-school science club which had access once a week for 2 hours. All classrooms were able to acquire successful and meaningful images during the course of the project. In at least two aspects Chickscope provided a fundamentally different experience to the students than could be provided by simply making the information and images available using the Web or a CD-ROM. Firstly, the students were immersed in a real-world scientific experience in which they were responsible for planning an experiment and making efficient and good use of time allocated on a complex and subtle piece of scientific apparatus. It was noted that most of the classrooms showed significant improvement in the quality and quantity of the images which they acquired during the project period. This indicated that the students learned how to plan and control their experiments and increased their understanding of the process of gathering scientific data. Secondly, the students were able to interact with scientists and specialists from a number of different disciplines during the course of the project. In this way the students could get answers to their questions and at the same time the scientists involved had the opportunity to provide guidance and suggestions to the students based on the interest and understanding evident in the posed questions about MR images. Students in several classrooms also completed MRI worksheets where they identified views (front, top, side) on their previously acquired images. Such writing exercises were particularly helpful to primary school classroom students as it encouraged them to write (Mason-Fossum and Thakkar, 1997). Working with MRI visualizations for an extended period provided all students with an opportunity to develop spatial skills. Classroom evaluation and assessment In order to examine how Chickscope was used across contexts, we adapted the situated evaluation approach (Bruce and Rubin, 1993; Bruce, Bruce, Conrad, and Huang, 1997). This approach was appropriate for the following four reasons. Firstly, the classrooms participating in the project were from across grade levels and different settings. Secondly, prior to the participation in the Chickscope project, the participating classrooms had limited experience in doing Internet-based science activities. Thirdly, in addition to allowing students to participate in an extended activity of serious science, the project also appeared to accomplish an array of goals, such as contributing to teachers' growth in understanding technology and science and providing convenient mechanisms for scientists to support students' learning. Fourthly, the project was evolving with regular input from participating teachers. The situated evaluation approach was then suitable to understand the similarities and differences of using Chickscope across grade levels and school settings. The data sources for the evaluation included background and feedback surveys, classroom observations, interviews, computer access logs, and interactive commentaries (electronic mail and scratchings). Before the project started, all appropriate university, school, and parent consent was obtained. We set a five-point criteria to understand the impact of the Chickscope project.
Participating Chickscope teachers also developed innovative mechanisms for assessing student performance. For example, students in one elementary school classroom recorded observations daily in their chick embryology logbooks (see Figure 4 in the "Sample Chickscope classroom scenarios" section). We are currently working towards developing a comprehensive evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness of remote instrumentation projects, such as Chickscope, across a range of grade levels. Relevance to local and national standards The curriculum resource materials developed by the Champaign County Cooperative Extension Service directly relate to the Illinois State Goals for Learning, Benchmarks, and Objectives of the 4-H Embryology Project. Our current plans include working with teachers to develop Chickscope imaging activities across K-12 that meet the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) criteria. A key challenge will be to consider the role of new technologies (such as remote instrumentation) in the scientific inquiry process (Linn et al., 1994).
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