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\begin{document} \begin{center}
{\Large Teaching Science  through MOSAIC and the Internet}
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{\bf
{\Large Phy 105 ``Science for the 21st Century''- Module SETI: Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence }
}
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{\Large
 A Project of the Physics Department of Syracuse University  in
Collaboration with the  Northeast Parallel Architectures Center (NPAC)
}
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\end{center}
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{\large {\it This document describes the {\bf SETI Project}, a computer and network
-based integrated approach to teaching topics of science to
non-science majors. Examples are provided as well as the evaluation of
its first classroom test.
}}
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\begin{center} {\Large
Introduction
}
\end{center}

Walking through a new bookstore or an exotic museum can be as exciting
as it is overwhelming. Our curiosity is piqued by the dazzling variety
of titles, graphics, displays and exhibits, but it would be an
impossible task to read, let alone digest, all that material; some
choices have to be made about what to look at or read. But this is
just the first step. In
order to really understand the material we are browsing, we have to make
connections between items (data as well as concepts) extracted from separate
information sources (i.e, different books, newspaper articles, video
clips, recordings, etc.). In summary, learning is an
activity which requires us to complete a series of  complex tasks, including the searching, retrieving, filtering, and analyzing of pieces of information.
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Teachers are routinely  confronted with  the task of sifting through
information material (available mostly in printed form) and of
organizing it into units (lectures, courses). In most courses, this
material is delivered through a lecture at the blackboard or at the
lectern.
  Such a teaching style has
changed little over the years, notwithstanding the fact that we have
gone
through important  technological revolutions (radio, television, rapid
circulation of printed material through photocopying, FAXing, etc.)

But things are changing.
In the last decade there has been a revolution in the distribution of
information.
A rapidly  increasing portion of such information is now stored in electronic
(digital) form in computers throughout the world and is accessed
through networks such as the Internet. Computers and networks have the
potential to enable us to reach the newest and/or the most appropriate
resources of information for our task.

Teachers and students should take advantage of this revolution. There
are tools, some of which will be described below, that can give
teachers a greater latitude in addressing increasingly diversified
audiences and in making the process of learning more active and effective.




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To facilitate the perusal of information, special programs have been
designed. One of the best known programs to navigate the networks is
``MOSAIC''. MOSAIC is a {\it browser}, that is, a computer program with
a truly  friendly interface that allows the user
to move from one information site to another by the click of the
mouse\footnote{There is now available a better browser than MOSAIC - Netscape. It is offered by a private company at no charge to educational institutions. Syracuse University students have access to it}. Key information is ''hyper-linked'', which means that by
clicking the mouse on designated, {\it high-lighted} words
(hyper-links) we can  move
from one information source to another.
Only minimal  experience with computers is required and this makes MOSAIC
very easy to use.
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 Text, images, video clips and sound can be seamlessly incorporated in
visually  appealing documents. Parts of  or whole documents can be
transfered to local users (in our case: teachers, students) via electronic
mail;  a  hard copy (paper, transparency foil, etc.) can be obtained  for
further use or distribution.
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NPAC has developed a few prototype educational programs, such as the
Kid's  Web
, which use MOSAIC to locate and access information of
 interest to K-12
 students. This is a rapidly expanding field, and other products, such
as
resources for elementary school teachers or entire courses offered
through the network,  are currently being developed at universities
and by commercial
companies (see Appendix).
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 Here we describe a prototype product which we developed to show how
computer-based resources and modern information transfer
technology can be used in undergraduate education. This program, which was recently tested in a course offered by the Physics Department, is the result of a collaboration of experts in information transfer technology (at NPAC) with
experts in the subject matter and who have teaching
experience. The difference between
our initiative, which maintains the social aspect of the teacher-student
relationship,
and  similar initiatives (``the virtual
university'') is that the latter ones promote ``distant
learning'' by offering courses via the network in which there is no
social contact.
Thoughtful use of the
technologies described below
can help  the teacher to be more  effective.
Students benefit because they can use better
material and have a greater flexibility in making associations
between different
pieces of information. Furthermore, they learn tools of information
transfer which will become more and more useful in the years to come.
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The teaching of  science to non-science majors gives us an excellent
opportunity to show how these new tools can make the process of
learning more effective and ejoyable.
This is how the new technology can help us.
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1.  Citizens will in the immediate future  need to have a broad
background in many fields of science. The types of problems with high
scientific content which will likely affect the average college
graduate are ones which require some basic  knowledge in more than one
field of
science. Current examples include
information given about
global warming, the genome project, waste disposal, the management of
energy resources, to name a few.
A holistic approach to
learning, rather than a discipline-specific approach as employed  in the past,
will serve students better in helping them to make connections between
facts and concepts in different fields of science; it will give
them the tools to help form intelligent opinions on scientific
matters.
Our holistic
approach to science in our course sequence Phy 105-106
uses a modular method, selecting topics which touch on many branches
of science, while being interesting and relevant to  the lives of
students. SETI (described in detail below) is an example of such a topic, and the first one where
a computer oriented approach has been attempted on such a scale. Typically four to
five major topics are covered per semester, and thus SETI and other
forthcoming computer-based projects account for about one fourth of
the course material.
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2. Knowledge of search, retrieval, and analysis of information will be
required in our society at an increasing rate.
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3. MOSAIC and similar programs are ideal tools to retrieve information
on a given topic across discipline boundaries. Documents are linked by
keywords, and from the possibility of obtaining the desired
information quickly out of a large amount of material without worrying
about the technical aspect of
accessing databases or libraries. Furthermore,
hyper-links allow one to navigate on the information superhighways as
little as necessary or as much as desired.
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Here we describe our SETI project, a part of our Phy 105-106 ``Science for
the 21st Century'' course sequence for non-science majors. SETI stands for
{\bf Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence} and it is a current
exciting international scientific effort. The aim of the project is to
teach various topics of science in an integrated way. SETI, which is known to
be an interesting topic among lay persons, can
be used as a tool to teach students about the universe and the solar
system in particular; the likelihood
of finding other civilizations; how life developed on Earth;
the use of technology to send and receive messages; and many other topics.
By exploiting people's natural
curiosity for extraterrestrial life and space science in general, we
can entice students into studying elements of astronomy, biology, and
communication technology.  Its key hallmark
is the use of MOSAIC, the Internet and other
computer-based resources.  By using this SETI project, we hope that the
apathy or even the dislike that
some students feel towards science will dissolve.
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\begin{center}
{\Large The Tools
}
\end{center}
MOSAIC, and its newest incarnation - Netscape, is a browser with
multimedia capabilities. What you need to use MOSAIC is an IBM
personal computer, a MacIntosh or a UNIX workstation and a connection
to the Internet (via modem or local area network). MOSAIC is used to
navigate the {\bf World Wide Web } (usually referred to as ``WWW'' or
``The Web'' ). The WWW is a collection of
documents distributed over many computer sites which are linked together
by ``pointers''. The user doesn't have to worry where these documents
are stored or how to retrieve them; what he/she sees is a multimedia
document (imagine you are leafing through an encyclopedia which has
images, video clips and sound), and leapfrogging from document to
document is achieved by clicking on keywords (hyper-links). The
information connected by these hyper-links makes up the World Wide Web of
information.
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What type of documents are stored on the WWW? The most diverse
topics are presented; the only characteristics these documents share is the
``language'' in which they are written: HTML. The Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML) consists of simple commands to organize plain text, images,
and sounds in a document.  One important feature of HTML is the
ability to embed in the text references to other documents
which may reside in other computers;  this is the concept of
hyper-linking. What you find on the Web varies enormously in subject
matter, quality and quantity. There are lavishly illustrated pages
from NASA, description of school programs (Syracuse University has
one), tours of  museum special collections (the Louvre has one),
collections of
cookbook recipies, and pages built by individuals, companies,
and organizations, to name a few.
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How can we take advantage of the great possibilities of this tool for
education?  As briefly mentioned above, information available through
the Web varies considerably in quality and format of
presentation, and as such is not immediately available for educational
uses. However, teachers can utilize these as well as other
resources to
produce their own documents  appropriate for the
particular audiences they are addressing. {\bf The teacher then becomes the
filter and organizer of the flow of information (that is, he/she is
the {\it information broker})}. In the SETI project
 we built, we have not limited ourselves to information coming
through the network. Rather, we merged material downloaded from the
WWW  with material we wrote and with material digitized
from printed documents. Furthermore,  we included in our SETI links
with the WWW server for students to explore on their own.
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\begin{center}
{\Large Navigating through  SETI: Some Examples
}
\end{center}
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A printed document does a poor job illustrating the
capabilities of
a network and computer based project such as SETI. Indeed the reader is
invited to try SETI on his/her own. If the reader is familiar with
MOSAIC or Netscape , he/she should open the following ``location'' (while in MOSAIC,
choose: ``open location'' or ``open URL''):
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/falcioni/SETI/seti.html and start
exploring SETI on his/her own.
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In the following pages, reproductions of screens (or ``pages'', as
they are called in jargon) are shown to give an idea of the
breadth of contents as well as of the integration of pictures, text,
and links to different parts of the document (hyper-links).
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Reproduced in the next two pages below  is the first page, called the ''home page'', which
students see when they access SETI. Students can access SETI through
any  computer in the clusters at any time  (MacIntosh, IBM or Unix). Detailed written
instructions are distributed beforehand, and teaching assistants are
available at designated hours at some of the computer clusters.
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 By clicking on any of the
blue-lined  images, one is
taken to different parts of the SETI. As mentioned above, a  large
part of SETI is made of documents especially prepared by us for this
course; this information is stored on local computers. However, it is
possible to directly access the WWW; by clicking  on {\bf ``Links to
the Internet''}, students are presented with a list of topics residing
on the WWW
and which are relevant to the project.
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Next we present an example of a homework assignment. Students can get
their assignment by clicking  on the {\bf ``Assignment''} box in the
home page.  An example of it  is given in the next pages, and
this is followed by two examples of SETI pages (one about the Solar
System and the other about Mars).
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\begin{center} {\Large Example of an Assignment}
\end{center}
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Students are given assignments through the {\bf Assignment Box}. A typical
one is shown below.
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{\bf Imagine you are a newspaper journalist and your boss asks you to write a piece
about the following topic. This is what he/she says:}
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"Do you remember about the Orson Wells radio broadcast? Was it in
1938 ? It was something about an invasion of aliens from another planet
(was it Mars? or maybe it was Venus). I think they landed on Earth."

Your task is to find out (write some notes while browsing):

* which planet the invaders came from

* whether this really occurred

* whether there is a planet (in the solar system) where life developed

* using ``Links to the Internet'', check whether there is some
information about space travel, UFOs, etc. and summarize it in a
couple of paragraphs

* the atmospheric composition and temperature of Venus and Mars

* whether the conditions above could sustain forms of
(terrestrial-like) life on Mars or Venus.

* what were the conditions on Earth when life first developed?
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Write a report (in the form of an article to appear in a
newspaper or magazine) including:
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* What Orson Wells really did and when

* What literary source he used

* The likelihood of such an invasion really happening, given the
knowledge we have now. Here you want to discuss how life developed on Earth,
giving information when the first organisms developed and when and how
multicellular creatures came into being. What are the present conditions on
the planet where the invaders come from? How do they compare to the ones on
Earth now and billions of years ago?


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Write a report at least 3 pages long. If the report is submitted on behalf of
a group (maximum number of members of a group is four), clearly indicate the
contributions of each member. You can submit the report
electronically.
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Here are some hints for developing a strategy:

- if this is your first time, browse through the document - don't worry
about trying to find answers to specific questions - just see what is available
or go to the ``Table of Contents'' - what entry
does it look promising? (In this specific case, try ``Martians!'', and then
click on the New York Times logo)

- if you are unfamiliar with some background material (about, say,
    planets and the solar system) click on the ``Tutorial''

- try to maintain a focus on your goals - browsing (or Net
surfing) is addictive!

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Below a page from SETI  on the {\bf Solar System} is reproduced. When one clicks on the
word {\bf ``Mars''} one is taken to a series of pages with information
about Mars, from volcanoes to polar caps. Most of this documentation comes
from a MOSAIC NASA ``home page''.
\newpage
There are many ways SETI (or similar projects on other topics) can be
used besides the example of the assignment given above. For example,
a preliminary overview of the overall project
can be  given in the classroom. In-class presentations using
computers, screen projectors and connections with the Internet are
technically feasible and we have used them during the 1994 Fall
semester with little trouble. Specific instruction and help is then available either in
the classroom or during scheduled sessions at one of the campus
computer clusters. However, students are strongly encouraged to
{\bf explore SETI on their own}. This latter strategy has a few advantages:

a. students work on their project when they prefer, that is they are
not tied to a rigid classroom schedule;

b. the assignments are built
in such a way that they encourage exploration and initiative which are
conductive to active learning;

c. depending on student's prior
knowledge, one can reads only as much as one needs to, or as much as
one wants to.
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\begin{center}
{\Large The First Test}
\end{center}
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Toward the end of Fall 1994, we introduced SETI to students as a part
of the Phy 105 course.  There were a few organizational problems related
to the fact that our Power Mac computer which was used as a server
crashed several times because it became overloaded. We transfered
our files to four NPAC Unix workstations and since then SETI has
worked flawlessly. Because it was the end of the semester and because
of the technical problems discussed above, we didn't have as much time
as we budgeted for introducing and discussing SETI in the classroom.
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Nonetheless, students liked the idea. Here are some comments:

``The SETI module was quite stimulating''.

``I'll be using the Internet from now on''.

``Interactive learning is very interesting''.

``It was great to be introduced to MOSAIC in the classroom''.
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\begin{center}
{\Large The Next Step
}
\end{center}
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We are evaluating students' feedback in order to improve our
product, and we are working on editorial and technical aspects of the
project. We plan to use SETI as a resource electronic book, or
encyclopedia, for students to use for their projects as part of the
Phy105-106 sequence. In the meantime, other computer-based
instructional tools are being developed, one on Science vs. Psuedoscience and another on
Mind and Machines by Profs. Lipson and Catterall, respectively  .
\begin{center}
{\Large Credits
}
\end{center}
Profs. Marvin Goldberg and Edward Lipson have developed the course sequence Phy
105-106 ``Science for the 21st Century''. They currently teach it to
about 120 students/semester, while
Profs. Gianfranco Vidali and Simon Catterall teach the University
College sections.

The computer-based module was developed by Gianfranco Vidali, and by Marco
Falcioni and Eric Gregory (graduate students supported by the Physics
Department and NPAC), in collaboration with Prof. Geoffrey Fox,
Director of NPAC and Physics Professor.



\newpage
\begin{center}
{\Large Glossary}
\end{center}
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\noindent Home page: the first (``title'') page of a document at a
given network location as accessed with the
use of MOSAIC or similar tools.
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\noindent Hyper-link: a pointer embedded in text or images which
references other documents accessed through the network.
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\noindent Hyper-text: document stored in electronic form consisting of
text, images and sound which are linked via the network to other
electronic documents residing on the same or other computers.
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\noindent Internet: one of the most important networks; it can be
easily accessed by the public.
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\noindent MOSAIC: a network-browsing viewing tool.
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\noindent Netscape : a commercial product similar to MOSAIC.

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\noindent Network: a physical communication medium through which
digitized information is exchanged. It consist of
links, nodes and sites.
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\noindent Server: a computer dedicated to store information readily
accessible to multiple users via the network .
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\noindent WWW: World Wide Web. The WWW of information comprises
information (text, still images, movies, and sounds) referenced  by
hyper-links and residing  in computer servers worldwide. This
information is typically accessed  by browsers, i.e., software tools
such as  MOSAIC.
\newpage
\begin{center} {\Large Annotated List of Educational Resources on the Web}
\end{center}

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This is a partial list of educational resources available on the Web using MOSAIC or Netscape browsers.
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\noindent
Educational Links accessed through SETI

http://altair.syr.edu:2024/SETI/links.html
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Chronicle of Higher Education

http://chronicle.merit.edu:httpport/.index.html

 ---Index of issues of the Chronicle. There are sometimes articles on ``the virtual university'' and educational resources via Inetrnet.

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JASON Project

   http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/scripts/JASON.html

Funded educational project for elementary schools.
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AskERIC Home Page

   http://eryx.syr.edu/COWSHome.html

--- Lessons plans on the Internet for K-12 teachers.
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Briarwood WWW System


   http://www.briarwood.com/

--- A commercial company offering  curriculum development through the Internet.

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Explorer Home Page

   http://unite.tisl.ukans.edu/xmintro.html

--- For elementary school teachers; outline of educational units.
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The Hub

   http://hub.terc.edu/

--- There is an article  about the future of teaching in the electronic age.
It contains the text of a speech given by Dr. Joseph C.
Burke, Interim Chancellor of the State University of New York.
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The Text Project

   http://sturgeon.mit.edu:8001/uu-gna/text/index.html

--- Hyeprtext courses and books; list of virtual universities
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University of Illinois Education Learning Resource Server

   http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/

  It has a list of papers presented to the
        Chicago Mosaic conference. There is a link to University of Illinois  on-line interactive geometry educational unit.

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Multimedia Textbooks

   http://indy.radiology.uiowa.edu/MultimediaTextbooks.html

Multimedia electronic textbook on anatomy created by University of Iowa.
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InforMNs Home Page

   http://informns.k12.mn.us/

Resources for K-12  teachers
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The Annanberg Foundation

http://chronicle.merit.edu:httpport/.external/.annenberg/.links.html

--- List of currently funded educational projects and guidelines to submit proposals.
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Project GeoSim - Geography Education Software.

   http://geosim.cs.vt.edu/index.html

--- Educational modules for introductory geography courses.
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The AIM Lab at the Mosaic Conference

 http://w3.ag.uiuc.edu/AIM/Discovery/conference.html

--- The Discovery System - an integrated approach to learning using MOSAIC.
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Purdue On-Line Writing Lab Web Server Home Page

  http://owl.trc.purdue.edu/

--- It has a list of sites in the arts and social sciences.


\noindent
\end{document}




