Helpful Hints

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Back Arrow

Browsers have a "Back Button" that allows you to go back to the most recently viewed page. The back button is usually in the top left corner of the browser's window. It can often be used to go back to many previously viewed pages, in reverse order from the order in which they were originally viewed. The back button can be used for most pages of this Website. While you can get back to a previously viewed page by using the same menus that got you there in the first place, the back button will take you to the particular screen (i.e., how far down the page you had previously gone) that you recently viewed rather than the first screen (i.e., the top of the page) using the menus.

With some browsers, however, there is one thing to take note of when going back to a page of the students' work intended for LCD viewing with the back button. While initially viewing the page, you may have added some text using the 1, 2, V, or Q buttons in the bottom right corner. Then, if you decide to go to another page (e.g., either using the menus in the side panel or by clicking a blue font word to go to the page in the dictionary for that word) when you return, the text you added may not be visible (depending upon your browser). You can either use the 1, 2, V, or Q buttons again or use the All button to bring all of the text into view at once. This problem does not exist with Firefox browser.

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Copyright

The material in this Website is Copyright protected. However, the holders of this Copyright encourage the widespread use of this material for non-profit educational purposes. We believe that students world wide should have free access to this information. We also believe that no one should reap a financial benefit from our material.

Credibility of Internet References and Student Research

Introduction  In the Smoking Info Activity, the students have searched for answers to their questions about smoking; using the Internet and their own research. Their Internet sources of information (called references) have varying degrees of credibility and we are attempting to help them understand that you must be careful that you use credible sources of information. The criteria (listed below) are used to assess the credibility of the references found on the Internet. While there is a lot of good information on the Internet, mixed in with it is information that is unsubstantiated, biased, wrong, filled with half truths, outward lies, and unsuitable for young people. Credibility opinions have been assigned to the references by the adults facilitators at the Stevens Forest Research Center in conjunction with the students conducting the Internet searches. Our purposes are to help the students understand that they can't believe everything the read and should be particularly skeptical of information derived from the Internet, that it is not always easy to know the credibility of the material, learn a little more about good scientific methodology/practices, and provide data to help other students decide whether or not to believe the information obtained from those references that is included in this Website.

The Credibility Scores are quantified results from qualitative opinions based on the Credibility Criteria listed here. At a later time I will document how the scores for individual criterion are combined for an overall measure of credibility.

Credibility Criteria  The criteria listed here consist of five major criteria, each of which is composed of several secondary criteria, which themselves each have at least two indicators. While the overall Credibility Score is a single numeric answer that can be used to rank order references of different credibility, the five major criteria provide high level insight into what the Credibility Score means. The secondary criteria provide a further breakdown into what the major criteria mean. The indicators are what are used to elicit the credibility opinions. While all of the indicators listed are important for conducting good science, there are many more listed than can be identified in a published piece of scientific work. Additionally, many of the references found on the Internet, while containing valuable information, may not have been derived from scientific experiments so you wouldn't expect to find all of these indicators even if you had insight into how the authors came to their conclusions. The indicators are a list of options to be considered when formulating a credibility opinion.

  1. Reputation
    • • Recognized Organization
      • - Accredited
      • - Held in high regard, respected
    • • Recognized Author
      • - Lives up to accepted social standards, willing to accept constructive criticism
      • - Has academic credentials, recognized awards, or has established a base of experience
  2. Quality
    • • Methodology
      • - Use of predefined or standardized procedures
      • - Use of control samples if appropriate
      • - Identification of assumptions
      • - Acknowledgment of lessons learned
      • - Identification of limitations and/or range of applicability of results
      • - Dependent and independent variables used correctly
      • - Other variables appear to be under control
      • - Correlation and cause/effect not confused
    • • Accuracy
      • - Accuracy explained
      • - Proper calibration of scales and instruments
    • • Precision
      • - Uncertainty in the underlying data presented
      • - Sufficient samples to draw valid conclusions
    • • Relevance
      • - Recent research or information that is still current
      • - Research relates to the topic or question addressed
      • - Generalizations (from experimental specifics) are substantiated
  3. Objectivity
    • • Conflict of interest
      • - Contains no advertising
      • - Does not promote a particular point of view or product
    • • Observable bias
      • - Has no prior history of bias
      • - Acknowledges contrary evidence
      • - Use of blind or double-blind test where appropriate
      • - Not blind-sighted by misconceptions
    • • References
      • - References cited
      • - References positions/results well represented
  4. Clarity
    • • Writing
      • - Proper grammar
      • - Complex vocabulary term defined
    • • Supporting Information
      • - Includes appropriate illustrations and/or graphs
      • - Provides clarifying examples
    • • Sensibility
      • - Logical conclusions drawn from the results
      • - Lacks tautologies
      • - Results of statistical analysis portrayed without relying upon the statistics
  5. Review
    • • Review Processes
      • - Has/used an internal review process
      • - Has had an external scientific peer review
    • • Review Results
      • - Independent confirmation of the results
      • - No credible independent contradiction of results
    • • Collaboration
      • - Other organization(s) participated significantly
      • - TBD

Credibility Criteria Scores  The main components of Credibility (Reputation, Quality, Objectivity, Clarity, and Review) are described in the Credibility Criteria section above virtue of the component criteria and their respective indicators. These criteria are used to assess both articles found on the Internet that address the students' questions and the research done by students themselves at the SFES Research Center. For the Internet articles, the Credibility opinions are assigned by the adult facilitators working with the students. This is how the students become familiar with the opinion scoring process. For the student research, the Credibility opinions are assigned by students themselves (but not those who conducted the research being scored) working with the adults. This reinforces the scoring process. In general, the Internet articles are difficult to score (complex subject material, limited data from which to judge the credibility, lack of familiarity with the organizations producing the articles); thus, the need for the adults to do the bulk of the work while the students learn. There is sufficient information about the student research, however, for the students to score their peers work; information contained in their presentations, their notebooks, the photographs that document the work, and the institutional memory, e.g., what Mr. Pittman can remember.

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Email

Explain how to EMail to SFES RC.

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FAQs and Abridged Answers

The FAQs section of this Website exists only in format, content to come someday. The items in the Menu at top/left of the Frequently Asked Questions page are questions from our students and visitors to our Website. Use this menu to get to an abridged answer. When you get to the answer, you can click on the question (just above the answer) to get a more detailed answer (right side of this page) if the abridge answer peeks your curiosity.

FAQs and Detailed Answers

The FAQs section of this Website exists only in format, content to come someday. The items in the Menu at top/right of the Frequently Asked Questions page are questions from our students and visitors to our Website. Use this menu to get to a detailed answer. When you get to the answer, you can click on the question (just above the answer) to get to an abridged answer (left side of this page) if you change your mind about reading all the details.

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Getting Started

This Website presents research on the Impact of Cigarette Smoke on Plants, work undertaken by students at SFES. The research has helped the students gained insights into cigarettes, science, technology, engineering and math. This Website is designed for screen-by-screen classroom viewing using an LCD projector (Firefox browser, Macintosh) so students in other schools can learn from the SFES work.

The Navigation side panel (available in every screen) has two menus that take you to the students' work; Activities (e.g., 2 Ignition) and Objectives (e.g., Prototype) specific to each respective Activity. Activities for which at least one Objective has been documented are in black typeface (the others are gray). The grayed-out items are placeholders for research completed by the students, but not yet documented.

  1. Select an Activity from the Activities menu in the side panel. It displays a summary of the objectives.
  2. Select an Objective (for the selected Activity) from the Objectives menu, again in the side panel.
  3. Use the up/down arrows (bottom right corner of each screen) to view the student's work.
  4. Use the buttons (bottom right also) to meter information out to the students at your own pace.
      5. • Buttons 1 and 2 display the first and second paragraphs of explanation.
      • Buttons V and Q highlight Vocabulary terms and display a Question under the photograph.
  5. Cursor over items shows additional information (e.g., pictures, definitions, answers, more details).

The last two menus in the side panel take you to useful supporting information which are currently in various states of completion. All four menus are available from any page in this Website. Suggest you try an Activity/Objective or two to get the feel of the Website. Then review the Tutorial (from the General Information menu) to learn in more detail how you can interact with the displays.

Graphs

Introduction  Graphs are sometimes used instead of photographs other kinds of illustrations to help explain the students findings. As with most other screens, there are primary and alternate graphs. Each graph usually portrays the same information to reinforce the findings; displaying it in a different way (e.g., different units, scales or data). You may notice symmetry in sentence structure for the next three paragraphs; done so on purpose so that you can easily distinguish between units, scales and data as the paragraphs exlain how changes in those properties can be used to enhance the usefulness of the pairs of graphs.

Displaying Graphs with Different Units  Some screens have pairs of graphs displayed with two different units (primary graph for daily data, alternate graph for yearly data). Moving the cursor back and forth across the imaginary center line switches from the primary to the alternate graph; alternately displaying the same data with the two different Y-aixs units. The X-axis (either scale or categories), the placement of data on the graph (height of the bars, location of the data points, slope of a line) and the graph structure (gridlines, tick marks) remain in the same position for each graph. Switching graphs only changes the Y-axis values and any data labels or titles that are relevant. It works like this because the Y-axis scale has been changed in proportion to the difference in the respective units. Consequently there is no visual jolt when you switch from one unit to the other.

Displaying Graphs with Different Scales  Some screens have pairs of graphs displayed with two different scales (primary graph for normal scale, alternate graph for an expanded or compressed scale). Moving the cursor back and forth across the imaginary center line switches from the primary to the alternate graph; alternately displaying the same data with the two different Y-axis scales. The X-axis (either scale or categories) and the graph structure (gridlines, tick marks) remain in the same position for each graph. Switching graphs changes the Y-axis values (and hence, changes the height of the bars, location of the data points, or slope of a line) and any data labels or titles that are relevant. It works like this because the Y-axis scale has been changed by an amount that accomodates new information added to the graph that would have been "off the chart" at the original scale. Consequently there is a visual jolt when you switch from one unit to the other.

Displaying Graphs with Different Data  Some screens have pairs of graphs that display two different sets of data (primary graph for one condition, alternate graph for another condition). Moving the cursor back and forth across the imaginary center line switches from the primary to the alternate graph; alternately displaying the two sets of data. As much as possible, the X-axis and Y-axis (either their scale or categories) and the graph structure (gridlines, tick marks) remain in the same position for each graph. Switching graphs only changes the Y-axis data and any data labels or titles that are relevant. It works like this because the Y-axis scale and units have been purposely chosen to, as best as is possible, adequately fit each set of data. Consequently there is no significant visual jolt when you switch from one set of data to the other.

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Mosaics of Photos

Some screens have an array of six photos that illustrate information of a summary nature; for example Background (often screen 2) and Conclusions, Lessons Learned, and What's Next (often the last three screens). In the case of the Foreshadowing screen, each of the six photos contains four more component photos that go into more detail. Cursor over any of the six screens and its respective four component photos appear; each with an enlarged photo over the student text and information in the banner specific to that photo. Additionally, cursor over any of the numbers in parentheses in the student text displays the component photos and summary information in the banner relevant to them all. Note also that the numbers in the lower right corner of each of the originally displayed photos turn orange when the cursor is over the originally displayed photo or its component photos. This is how it works with all such mosaic (e.g., Background, Conclusions,...) screens. This makes it easier to identify which photo the cursor is over because it sometimes blends in with the image details and is difficult to see and so you sometimes don't know which photo the banner text applies to. In the Foreshadowing screen, there is an additional feature. Cursor over that corner number brings up an enlarged photo of the originally displayed photo (over the student text) and an overview of that activity as a whole in the banner.

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Navigation, Screen-to-Screen

Introduction  There are many ways to navigate from screen-to-screen (down/up arrows, double down/up arrows, scroll bars, tabs in the banner, all screens menus, selected screens menus). Each of these are described in the paragraphs below. The one way that you can't navigate (or can't do so very effectively) is through use of your computer's up/down or left/right arrows. I haven't figured that one out yet.

Down/Up Navigation Arrows  The presentations intended for classroom viewing with an LCD projector have been designed for screen-by-screen viewing (in screen-by-screen increments) as opposed to continuous movement by the scroll bars. Scroll bars can be used, but they are difficult for viewers who don't have their hands on the scroll bar controls; its a visual earthquake (or at least a visual jolt). The down/up arrows in the lower right corner can be used to move from screen-to-screen in screen-to-screen increments. Since the format is consistent from screen-to-screen only the content changes so it is visually much easier to watch.

Each click of the down pointing blue arrow moves to the next (higher number) screen; each click of the up pointing blue arrow moves to the previous (lower number) screen. The blue arrow changes to a yellow when the cursor is over it. When the first or end screen is reached, the blue arrow changes to white indicating that a click won't take you any further in that direction. The arrows are actually triangles, I mislabeled them when I started and can't get out of the habit of calling them arrows. A complete list of the titles of the screens can be found in the All Screens menu in the upper right side of the banner.

Double Down/Up Navigation Arrows  The number of screens in each presentation is far more than is reasonable for an hour class of elementary school aged students; however, it is the number required to tell a complete story. One option is to take three or four class periods to go through the entire set of screens; take the time to do it right, if you have the class time available. Another option is to only view a selected set of screens that tells a coherent story, albeit an incomplete story. The double down/up arrows in the lower right corner will take you through such a selected set of screens; preselected for viewing in a reasonable class period.

In moving from one of the selected screens to the next, several screens are skipped and, while the content of the eight or so chosen screens does flow from one to the next reasonable well, there is context missing (that would have been viewed if the intermediate screens were used). For example, in going from screen 1→3→9, the students may ask (on, say, screen 9) "Where did the apparatus come from that those students are using?" That information is in screens 7 and 8 (which were skipped in the selected screen viewing using the double down arrows). You can switch from the double arrows to the single arrows on any screen. In this case you would go from screen 1→3→9 using the double down arrows and then from screen 9→8→7 quickly using the single up arrow and then from screen 7→8 using the single down arrow and then switch back to the double down arrows to continue on through the selected screens. Sound complex, yes; but try it, it isn't necessarily so.

Blue-to-White Navigation Arrows  The navigation arrows in the lower right corner each screen move you through the screens one screen at a time (single down/up arrows) or in multiple screen jumps (double down/up arrows). When you reach the last screen available, the down arrows turn from blue to white and cursor over produces a "No" in the arrow. Further clicking does nothing because there's no more screens in that direction. It works the same way for the up arrows; getting back to the first available screen and the blue arrow turns to white. The term single or double "arrow" is a misnomer, they're really triangles that got mislabeled in a time and galaxy far far away.

Scroll Bar Navigation  The vertical scroll bars can be used to scroll through the entire presentation. This is not the recommended approach since the screen-by-screen navigation (using the single or double down/up arrows) give a more visually smooth transition. There may be reasons, however, to use the scroll bars; for example to move quickly from one end of the presentation to the other or to view the teacher guidance which is between the screens and normally hidden behind the banner. The screens are designed for LCD projector viewing in the classroom and as such, they are of fixed dimensions. You can not resize the screens, but you can make the window larger and see more than one screen at a time. Scroll bars might be useful for navigation with this format.

STEM Tabs in Banner  The STEM objectives (within the STEM Info Activity) have four tabs in the banner of each screen (one each for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Cursor over one of the S-T-E-M tabs and the definition for its respective discipline appears in the right side of the banner (where all definitions appear). The first screen of the STEM Objectives also contains their definitions within the text where the students' text appears. The intention is to use the normal vocabulary process to introduce students to the four disciplines and then have them conveniently available on all screens (in the banner) to facilitate a discussion such as "I forget what Technology means" or "Tell me again, what's the difference between Technology and Engineering?" These STEM Objectives have four sections, one for each of the STEM disciplines. Clicking on these S-T-E-M tabs will take you to the first screen in each respective section.

All Screens Menu Navigation  The menu in the upper right corner of the banner will take you directly to any screen in the presentation. The items listed are the titles above the initially displayed (primary) photo on the respective screen. It is much like a screen title, but more precisely, it is a photo title. The screens have a primary and alternate photo (switched by cursor over movements) which each have their own title when it makes sense. If the primary photo title adequately describes the alternate photo, the same title is used for both photos; when it doesn't a title unique to the alternate photo is used. That title is not in the menu.

Selected Screens Menu Navigation  This menu (just below the All Screens menu) does the same function as the menu described above but only lists the selected screens that were chosen for an abridged viewing session. This menu also serves as an easily accessible list of the selected screens that are displayed by successive clicks of the double down/up arrows.

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Page Controls

Introduction  The bottom right corner of the screens that explain the students' work for their objectives (designed for LCD projector viewing) have a set of controls that help the teacher guide the students through the material. These controls bring the text into view or hide it incrementally or all at once, provide the teacher with guidance unique to each page, provide access to this section of the Helpful Hints page, play a file to hear the students themselves read the text, navigate forward or backward on a screen-by-screen basis or in predefined jumps, and eventually will contain a menu to access additional details associated with the page being viewed. All of these are explained below in more detail.

Incrementally View Text  The first four buttons (labeled 1, 2, V and Q) incrementally display the text on each screen. They allow the teacher to control the flow of information at a rate that he/she feels comfortable with in the classroom setting. There are two paragraphs next to each photograph (called up by clicking the button 1 and 2 respectively), highlighted vocabulary words (clicking the V button) and one question under the photograph (called up by clicking the Q button). The buttons can be used in any order. The button labeled All displays all of text for the current screen with a single click. To hide the text merely double click the respective button for the text you want to remove from the students' view.

The text in the first two paragraphs often contains words in italic font for which definitions have been written. After using the V button (which turns the italic words blue), putting the cursor over one of the words brings up an abridged definition (in a yellow box in the banner) and in some activities, a photograph or graphic in the banner illustrating the word. Clicking the word takes the viewer to the portion of the dictionary in which the students can read a more detailed definition. The dictionary text is smaller font and generally not suitable for classroom viewing or discussion. It is intended for one-on-one viewing (teacher and student or perhaps two students at the same computer) where the text can be read more easily. The dictionary is evolving as the students' work is documented and is far from complete; for many words, the dictionary only contains a repeat of the yellow box definition. Upon returning to the page being viewed (with the browser's Back button, the individual menu associated with each word defined or by using the navigation controls in the side panel), the paragraphs of text may be in their original refreshed (hidden) state (with some browsers). To bring them back merely click the All button. The same thing will occur when you use the H (Help) button (which you probably used to get to this explanation) and the "More Details" menus that take you to their respective files. With most browsers, your screen is refreshed, requiring you to use the All button to bring back the text. The back button in Firefox browser, however, does not refresh the screen so you see it in the same state that you left it.

You should also note that the button arrangement in the last three screens is slightly different. There are three numbered buttons (labeled 1, 2, and 3) because there are three points to be made as opposed to two paragraphs. Additionally, in order to encourage the students to focus on those three points, no vocabulary words are defined on those screens; there is, therefore no need for a V button. Also, you shouldn't confuse the All button (which calls up all of the text for the particular screen being viewed) with the All Text or All + Vocab buttons in the banner (which call up all of the text for all screens). Both appear to do the same thing (when you view the one screen currently displayed) but the latter does it for all screens so you see all of the material if you choose to scan through all of the screens one (up or down arrow) click at a time.

Listen to Audio  In some presentations there are sound files of the students reading the first and second paragraphs on the screens. The files are activated by a sound control (only visible when there is a sound file for the screen). This is one way that can be used to get the students to pay attention to the screen; and it provides a simultaneous audio/visual learning environment. With a little practice, the teacher can learn how to click the 1 button (to display the first paragraph), quickly click the play symbol in the sound control (to hear the student audio file for that text) and then, at the right moment (when the audio is just finishing the first paragraph), click the 2 button (to display the second paragraph just as the audio file starts to read it). It does rivet the student's attention to the screen.

Depending upon how your computer's sound preferences are set, you may hear the students simultaneously reading all of text for all of the screens. You will have to change your system preferences to stop that and that preference is accessible from the sound controls.

There are other options for hearing the text. For example, the teacher can read it or the teacher can have students in the classroom take turns reading the paragraphs. Not knowing when you'll be called upon to read also keeps the students alert.

Teacher Guidance  The expression "You had to have been there..." applies to many of the subtleties scattered through this Website. The research is often quite complex and much that occurs is not documented. The Teacher Guidance is intended to alleviate that situation to some degree. It provides information for the teacher on a screen-by-screen basis that she/he may find useful to pick up on the nuances. The Teacher Guidance can be viewed in two ways; over the banner or under it. When you have the window sized so that one screen just fits the display area (optimum for viewing with an LCD projector in the classroom), putting the cursor over the Circle-T button will display the guidance information in the banner; move the cursor off the Circle-T button to remove the information. If you have the window sized to view more than one screen at a time (for planning and with a larger monitor) you will see the guidance at the top of each screen. As you use the vertical scroll bar to move through the screens, the screens (with the guidance information) will move under the banner.

The Teacher Guidance information is unique to each screen. It may contain background information that helps the teacher understand the context of the work being displayed (e.g., "The previous group never solved this problem..."). It may provide cautions that could contribute to the classroom discussions (e.g., "Shouldn't that student be wearing goggles?"). It may provide generalized experience based on accepted scientific practices (e.g., "This student should have made a second measurement to be sure of his data.") or experiences unique to the students conducting this research (e.g., "They took a shortcut here because they were in a hurry and messed up the experiment."). There are also often questions in the Teacher Guidance, sometimes with an answer (e.g., "Is that wire hot? Yes, probably 1,000°F.") and sometimes it's rhetorical (e.g., What could they have done better?"). The Teacher Guidance will also identify mistakes that the students have made (e.g., "Look closely at that graph, the axes are not labeled.") or things that are going on in this screen that foreshadow important things to be revealed in subsequent screens (e.g., "Look at how carelessly they've planted the seeds. How will that influence the experiment that the plants will be used for?").

The Teacher guidance is small font to get as much information in the limited space and it is not intended to be viewed in the classroom. It's more for teacher preparation than for classroom discussions. However, if students find this information on their own, it will only enhance their educational experience, not spoil things in the classroom. The more informed the viewers are during a classroom discussion, the better the discussions will be.

View Additional Details (Activities 1-20)  The Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Health concepts in these presentations is wide ranging and is usually not explained in detail. In some cases a single word (e.g., "the heat from the...") can open up into a whole lesson itself. The Additional Details menu is a place in which that expanded material could reside. As of this writing (February, 2009) no additional details have been written. Anyone interested in contributing, please contact the Research Center Staff (email link in the upper left corner of every screen).

View Additional Details (Activity 21)  The answers to the questions about cigarettes and smoking (Activity 21) have the same format as that of the STEM activities (1-20), however, the Additional Details menu will have significantly different content. There will be three menu items (Confirmation, Contradictions, and SFES Research) which summarize Web-derived articles that provide confirming viewpoints or those providing contradictory data/opinions to the findings presented in the page (containing the Additional Details menu). The SFES Research Additional Details is where work performed by our students will be presented that support or refute the Internet articles. As of this date (February, 2009) none of them have been included.

Navigate Screen-by-Screen  You can move through the screens by scrolling, using the menus in the banner, and by using the down/up arrows in the bottom right corner of the screens. You will probably find scrolling difficult unless you are using a large area monitor. The menus in the banner can take you quickly to any screen (identified by screen number and picture title). The recommended way to go through the screens, however, is with the down/up arrows. They bring successive screens into view in exact registration so information that is the same from screen-to-screen does not give you a visual jolt. It is particularly effective if you set the projected display size to just contain the three main elements (navigation panel, banner, content area) of each screen. They are bounded by a black field so it is easy to adjust the window size accordingly. The down pointing arrow brings each successive screen into view; the up pointing arrow takes you back one screen at a time. Once all of the photographs have been loaded into memory, you can click screen-to-screen very quickly.

Navigate in Multi-Screen Jumps  There are two pairs of down/up arrows; one pair for going through the screens one at a time (most have ~30 screens, one has 99 screens) as described above, and another pair (with double arrow symbols) for going through a smaller number of selected screens (e.g., most ~8 screens, one having 15 screens). The former would be for viewing all of the screens for one objective (but in several sessions), the latter would be for viewing the smaller number of pre-selected screens that tell a coherent story (albeit, an incomplete story) in one session. Experience has shown that ~50-60 minutes is optimum before the students can't sit still anymore or become bored or overwhelmed. The first menu in banner lists all of the screens, the second menu lists only those in the set of selected screens. If you use the "double" arrows, you will skip all but those selected screens. On occasion it may be necessary to go back a screen or two to understand what was missed in those "in-between" screens. You can switch from the one screen at a time (single) arrows to the multi-screen jumps (double) arrows at any time.

Photos in LCD Screens

Introduction  Each of the screens in the part of this Website designed for classroom viewing with an LCD projector have common elements; a banner with information common to all screens and photographs, text, and controls unique to each screen. The photographs have a variety of interactive features which are described below.

Group Photo, Screen 1  The first screen of most presentations intended for LCD viewing in the classroom normally contains a group photograph of the students who conducted the science, technology, engineering, or math activity. Their objective is in the banner and remains there for all screens in presentation. The text (to the right of the group photo) introduces the work from the students' perspective. Moving the cursor over that group photograph displays dashed lines between the students; when the cursor is over one of the students photos (between the separating dashed lines), an enlarged photograph of that student is displayed on the screen. Clicking on a group photo displays a full screen photo of the group clicked. Click on that full screen photo to remove it and return to the first screen.

Simultaneously with moving the cursor over a student's photo, (on some of the presentations now, and all eventually) a thought provoking question is displayed in the banner. Since this is the first screen in the presentation (and viewers only know the objective), the first sentence in the banner provides some context for the question (which is the last sentence in the banner). The question is followed by a "Hint, Screen..." which identifies the screen number in which the students explain what they were doing that relates to the question. That screen doesn't necessarily provide the answer directly, but should provide enough information that some of the students can find the answer. Near the end of the presentation (just before the wrap-up screen,i.e., Conclusions, Lessons Learned, What's Next?) a screen with a similar format to screen 1 provides an explicit answer to all questions asked on screen 1.

Groups Photo, Screen 1  For presentations that describe the work accomplished by several groups, the first screen contains a photo of all those groups. Each individual group photo behaves the same way as described in the paragraph above for the single group screen (cursor over a student's photo for an enlarged photo and thought provoking question in the banner, click to see an enlarged photo of the group). The only difference is that there are several groups with which the cursor over/click functions can be used.

Group Photos, Subsequent Screens  If a presentation describes the work of several groups, each respective group's section of the presentation starts with a group photo of the students who conducted that work. All of the groups' photos are on screen 1 and each individual group's photo is repeated throughout the presentation. The same thought provoking questions that appear in the banner of screen 1 (when the cursor is moved over the student's photo) are also displayed in the same manner on the group's individual photo.

Background Screen  The second screen in all documented Objectives contains a set of photos and text that explains the background leading to the work that follows. There are generally six photos that have rollover and click functions. Moving the cursor over one of the six photos displays an enlarged view to the right of the six photos (which covers the text on that portion of the screen). The enlarged photo is always the same view as its respective original, but may also be zoomed in to see specific details more clearly. Simultaneously with display of the enlarged photo is text in the banner that explains the background work. The date in the lower right corner of each photo is the starting date for the particular group that did this background work. It becomes the same orange color as the banner; making it easy to correlate the text with the particular photo in the group of six (sometimes it is difficult to find the cursor).

Click each of the six photograph to display a full screen photo of the respective background work. There is no additional text for those photos, but the previously displayed banner text should be helpful in understanding what is happening. These photos are always different views from the original and provide more context for understanding the background work. Click the full screen photo to remove it and return to the normal view of the student's work.

You can use your browser's back button to get back to screen 2 from these helpful hints. The text you may have displayed on that screen (with the 1, 2, V, Q or All buttons) will not be displayed. Click the All button to bring it back. This doesn't happen when you return from the Dictionary (after having gone there by clicking on a blue-italic word). Then, the text doesn't disappear. One of life's mysteries.

Conclusion Screen  To be written.

Concluding Thoughts about... Screen  This screen is modeled after the Conclusions screen (described above) where conclusions are drawn with respect to the students' research objective. The objective of this presentation, however, isn't a research objective; it is to "Use SFES student research to illustrate the principles of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics." So we don't really have conclusions, but we do have concluding thoughts about the STEM disciplines which are explained and illustrated.

This screen contains 24 photographs that illustrate important STEM-related principles. As with the Conclusion screen discussed above, cursor over the numbers 1-6 in the student text area displays text in the banner that explains its respective "quadrant" (I don't know the quadrant equivalent name for something that has six parts). However, unlike the Conclusion screen, that text (generally applicable to the component photos) is not the same as the text brought with the cursor over the respective photos. That text is unique to each of the four component photos that appear when the cursor is over each of the photos.

There is something special about the first two "quadrants" on this screen. If you move the cursor back and forth across the two upper component photos, the text in the banner remains the same but the enlarged photo that covers the student text changes. The two photos are registered so the only change you see is what occured from photo-to-photo (which was a from fraction of a second to a couple seconds). You can see, for example the water move (upper two component photos) and the smoke turn into tar (lower two component photos) in the first quadrant photo. In the second, you see the tobacco burn (upper two component photos) and flames burst out of the cigarette (lower two component photos).

Lessons Learned Screen  To be written.

What's Next Screen  To be written.

Two Photos per Screen  When a screen first appears there is a single photo displayed along with its title. Most screens have two photos; the primary photo initially displayed and an alternate view displayed when the cursor is moved over the primary photo. There is an imaginary dividing line down the center of these two photos and when the cursor moves across that line the photo displayed photo is hidden and the other is displayed. If the title of the primary photo is relevant to the alternate, the title remains, however, if it is not appropriate for the alternate photo, it changes to describe the alternate photo. The title for the primary photo is the one used in the menus (that take you to their respective screens) located in the banner.

When the screen is initially displayed, the banner information is in its normal state; objective for the entire presentation on the left side, menus on the right side and buttons under those menus that control text, vocabulary highlighting and photos for all screens. However, when the cursor is moved over the primary photo, text appears in the banner that explains what is going on in that photo. When the cursor is moved to the alternate photo, text specific to that photo is displayed. Moving he cursor off the photos altogether returns the banner to its normal state. Normally you would move the cursor in from the right (at which time the primary photo is immediately hidden and the alternate photo appears; moving further across the center line and the primary photo appears again. Moving the cursor (to the right) back across the center line redisplays the alternate photo and then when you move the cursor completely off that photo (out of the photo area to the right), the primary photo reappears. If you wanted to leave the alternate photo displayed (for discussion and perhaps changing the text), move the cursor to out of the photo area from the left side (and then carefully move the cursor around the photo area to use other controls on the screen).

Display Alternate Photo  Moving the cursor back and forth across the imaginary center line switches between the primary and alternate photos. Moving the cursor off the photo to the right of the screen leaves the primary photo displayed. You will find this a natural movement to make. However, moving the cursor off the photo to the left of the screen leaves the alternate photo displayed. Since the primary and alternate photos generally illustrate the first and second paragraphs of the students' text, leaving the alternate photo displayed can help when studying that text. It is particularly useful when the second paragraph contains more text than the first paragraph.

Enlarged View  Screens that have a primary and alternate photo (each displayed by moving the cursor back and forth across an imaginary center line on the photos) also have enlarged views available. These enlarged views are each displayed by a single click of their primary or alternate view. The enlarged view fills the screen (except for the navigation panel to the left of the screen). The enlarged view may be merely an enlargement of the same content as its respective primary or alternate view or it could be a cropped section of those photos to get a very close look at the details. When the cropped enlarged views were made, the source image may have been the same photo as the smaller version or it may be, literally, a close up photo taken just before or after the initially viewed smaller photo was taken. This allows quite extreme enlargements with no loss in image detail. In those cases, you may see slight changes in the content as the students or equipment may have moved slightly between the successive photos. In some cases the enlarged photo may be a completely different view, designed to give a different visual perspective of what is going on. There may also be an inset photo that provides additional information.

To remove the enlarged view (and return to the normal display state) click the enlarged view one time. The enlarged view covers the text and interactive controls on the screen. They are designed for a quick look or perhaps discussion about what the students are doing; click (on the small view) to display the enlarged view, click again (on the enlarged view) to remove the it. There may be times when you want to leave the enlarged view displayed and move on to another screen. The screen-to-screen (up/down) arrows in the lower right corner poke through the enlarged view of the primary photo and can be used for that purpose. The screen number also pokes through. Click on either the up or down arrow and you will see the previous or next screen. Return to the screen that you left with the enlarged view displayed, and that enlarged view will still be displayed. If you left several screen in that state, they will each be displayed in that state when you return to their respective screen. Click on any one of the enlarged views of the primary photo and all of the enlarged views that you may have displayed will be hidden, returning all screens to their initial state. You can also use the vertical scroll bar to move from screen-to-screen with or without one or many of the enlarged views displayed. The up/down arrows, however, keep the screens in register and are easier to view.

Can you display enlarged views of the alternate photo on different screens? Yes. Click on the alternate view (small photo) to display its enlarged view, just as you do with the primary photo. If, however, you want to leave the alternate enlarged view displayed and move to another screen, use the vertical scroll bar. You have to use the scroll bar because the up/down arrows are not displayed on enlarged views of the alternate photo. However, there is a subtlety here. Clicking on any one of those enlarged views hides only that one; all other remain displayed. Now where the plot thickens is if you left displayed a mixture of primary and alternate enlarged views. Clicking on any primary enlarged view removes all of the primary views but leaves the alternate views displayed. So if you get confused, use your browser's refresh button to remove all of the enlarged views and return every screen back to its initially displayed state.

Single Enlarged View  The primary and alternate photos often give you two views of the same object and running the cursor back and forth across the centerline lets you flicker between the two views. This is a good comparative technique. However, there are times when it is better to see the two objects side-by-side. This is another good comparative technique. In the former case, clicking either side of the imaginary center line provides separate enlarged views of the two respective (primary and alternate) photos. In the latter case, where it is more beneficial to use the enlarged view to see both images side-by-side, clicking either side of the center line provides the same enlarged view of both primary and alternate photos in one enlarged view.

Dashed-Line around Multiple Photos  Some screens contain multiple photos, each of which can be seen in an enlarged size (of the same or different photo representing the information). When the cursor is brought over any of the photos, a blue dashed-lines appear that bound each photo. This is a reminder that you can put the cursor over the individual photos to get more imagery or text information. In this case, cursor over displays the image over the student text and an explanation is displayed in the banner.

Dashed-Line Box around Details, Cursor Over  Some screens have one or more dashed-line boxes that surround some detail in the primary or alternate photos. Cursor over these boxed details displays a close-up photo of the details to the right of the primary or alternate photo. If the boxed detail is on the primary photo (the one displayed when the screen is initially viewed), then the boxed detail doesn't appear until the cursor is over the photo. This is the same idea as used with annotation; the initial view of a primary photograph is uncluttered. Removing the cursor from the photo area restores the uncluttered view of the primary photo.

Dashed-Line Box around Details, Cursor Click  In addition to displaying an enlarged photo of details in a dashed-line box, clicking in the boxed detail displays a near-full screen photo of the details or another photo depicting some other aspect of it. In some cases, the other aspect shown provides information not normally seen (e.g., the inside of a laser level tool). Text will also appear in the banner explaining the newly displayed photo. Click on the photo to remove it and return the screen to its state before the boxed detail had been clicked.

Relationship of Text to Photographs  Each screen in the presentations intended for classroom viewing with an LCD projector have two paragraphs of text and two photograph. In general, each photo relates to one of the paragraphs. A sequence that can be used in the classroom would be to display the first paragraph (click the 1 button) and read it (or have a student read it or, when available, use the sound control to have a SFES student read the paragraph) while the initially displayed (primary) photo is in view. Then display the second paragraph (click the 2 button), move the cursor over the primary photo (which will display the alternate photo) and read the second paragraph. With a little practice it will become second nature. It makes for a good flow and the students will learn quickly that they have to pay attention to keep up with the presentation.

Numbered Steps on Photographs  Some screens focus on writing a procedure for experiments or other activities. To reinforce the step-by-step nature of some kinds of procedures, annotation (in the form of numbers) may be used on the photographs that points out those steps. Putting the cursor over the numbered steps displays illustrative photos of those steps in the procedure. In some screens the text in the banner will remain the same (if, for example, all of the steps had been identified in one banner); in other screens, putting the cursor over each numbered step may bring up a photo and an explanation of the step. As with other kinds of annotation or graphics that appear when the cursor is over the photo, the number steps also are hidden when the cursor is moved off the photo to keep the initial view of that photo clutter free.

Notice in this example, that the imaginary center line has been moved to the right somewhat so that the cursor can be put over each of the numbered steps without having the primary and alternate photos switching back and forth. You may also see the student text (to the right of the photos) at the same time as the numbered steps annotated on the primary photo by moving the cursor off the photo to the left (not to the right as you would ordinarily do). The annotated steps remain and, if the student text isn't already displayed, clicking the 1 and 2 or All buttons will display it. However, since the banner text is normally hidden when the cursor is moved off the photos, that information will not be visible.

Annotation on Photographs  Annotation in the form of text and/or graphics may be displayed on either or both of the primary and alternate photos. The annotation is hidden when the screen is initially displayed and appears on each respective photo when the cursor is moved across the imaginary center line. In some case there may be paralleling text in the two photos and moving the cursor repeatedly back and forth across that center line is a useful way to see the relationships in photos that are emphasized by the text. Focus on one detail (and its associated annotation) and move the cursor back and forth; look at another and repeat the process.

Registered Graphics (photos or other illustrations)  Registered graphics are used on some screens to emphasize subtle changes in some activity. Moving the cursor back and forth across the imaginary center line (or into and out of the graphics area) will switch the primary and alternate graphics. If the center line is used, the graphics will each have their respective annotation; if the boundary between the graphics and the rest of the screen is used, one grahic will have annotation and the other graphic will be displayed in its original unannotated state.

The degree of registration will depend upon how the original graphics were made or photos were captured. If the photos were taken during the research sessions (for example, point and shoot, pause, shoot again after a few seconds), the registration may be poor. If the photos were taken after the research had been completed (for example, using a tripod), the registration may be quite good. If graphics were made for the alternating presentation, the registration will usually be perfect.

In some cases, a single graphic may be used as both the primary and alternate photos; the difference between the two versions of it may be due to imagery processing. For example, if a step-by-step procedure had been photographed from a page in the laboratory notebook, some of the steps may have been defocused to change their emphasis consistent with the flow of the text explaining how the students followed the steps.

Information Graphics  In addition to graphics on the primary and alternate photos, some enlarged photos (displayed by clicking on either the primary or alternate photo) may contain graphics. In some screens, these graphics are the same as those on their respective primary or alternate photo (to see the details more clearly) and in other screens, it may be a completely new set of annotations (to see the details from another perspective). There is no way to know ahead of time whether or not the enlarged photos have graphics; only familiarity with the material presented will help you with that.

Three Photos  Occasionally there will be three photos on a given screen; one for the original state (seen when the screen is initially viewed) and two variants (seen when the cursor is moved across the imaginary center line). It is a subtle thing that you probably won't notice. This three photo approach lets you see some baseline set of conditions and then two variants to that baseline. The two variants will each have their respective text displayed in the banner. That text will be hidden when the initial view is displayed, allowing you access to the menus and buttons in the banner.

Three Photo Hiccup  When three photos are used (a baseline and two variants), there is an anomaly when the cursor is moved across the imaginary center line (that adds life to the presentation, or a visual jolt, which ever you're inclined to see). This is a momentary display of the initial photo (of the three that occupy the same space on the screen). I've tried to get it out but have repeatedly failed.

Interactive Features Freeze in Place  Depending upon the speed of your computer and how fast you move the cursor, sometimes text displayed in the banner that appears when the cursor is moved over a photo will not be hidden when the cursor is moved off the photo. With a really fast computer, you have to move the computer really really fast; but it can happen particularly if you nick the corner of a photo with the cursor where the time the cursor is over the photo is really really really short. The text will not go away even when you move on to the next screen. After a few screens you won't know how the text got there and be really confused. Use your browser's refresh button to clear things up.

Previews

Explain Previews, include potential download time delay.

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References for Graphics and Findings

Under the illustrative grahics for the Smoking Information objectives you will find two buttons; Grahics and Findings. Clicking either of these buttons displays the organization and website URL for the respective material. The references are displayed in the space ordinarily used for the question asked on each screen. Double clicking the buttons removes the references. The references are also removed by clicking either the Q or All buttons (bottom right corner of each screen) and the All Text and All + Vocab buttons (right side of banner).

The references contain the organization that supplied the information from which the finding were deraived and the URL if it came from a Website. For the graphics, there is also a URL link to the specific Website for the image/graphic. Such information is not present for the research accomplished by the SFES students themselves as they conduct their science, technology, engineering and mathematics work to carry out an objective in the Impact of Cigarette Smoke on Plants study.

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Side Panel Menus 1 and 2 (Activities and Objectives)

The research that the students have been conducting at Stevens Forest Elementary School has been organized by Activities. Some Activities were accomplished by a single students from start to finish (e.g., Ignition) while others were worked on by as many as five groups (e.g., Power) and may have taken an entire year to complete. Some activities are still on-going (e.g., Instrumentation).

The first item in the Activities menu is the Website Home Page. This is the page with the six slide shows that provide you with a glimpse of what you will see when you look at the students' work (via the Activities, then Objectives menus). These slides were added to the Website in 2007 and only show the early research on this study. The next item takes you to a Summary page from which you see pictures illustrating the goals and candidate objectives for each Activity. The third item in the Activities menu is the Helpful Hints which takes you to the part of the Helpful Hints document that you are currently reading. All of the other helpful hints are available by simply scrolling up or down this document or by using the alphabetical and topic menus or by using the A-Z buttons (all in the banner).

The next twenty-one items on the Activities menu are all of the Activities for which research has been (or will soon be) conducted by the students. They are labeled with the numbers 1 to 21 followed by their respective Activity name. These Activities are listed in the order that they were first worked on, so Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical Activities are intermixed. On hindsight, this isn't a very good way to organize the Activities, however, when we started this study I didn't have the foresight to know better. It's too hard to reorganize years with of notebooks of data, tens of thousands of photographs and the Website as it is currently configured.

When you first go to the Activities menu you will notice that the Objectives menu (just below the Activities menu) has a dashed line displayed. This is because you have to select an Activity before the computer can determine which Objectives to display for that Activity in the menu. Clicking on an Activity menu's item (such as Ignition) takes you to the summary page illustrating all of the objectives for that Activity. At this point, the Objectives menu items (i.e., those same objectives illustrated in the summary page) become available for that selected Activity. All of the pages in this Website have the identical menus so you can go from any Activity's Objective to any other with two menu selections.

Side Panel Menu 3, General Information

The options in this menu provide access to a variety of pages that support this Website. They range in completeness from "Under Construction" (a euphemism for not started or in such poor shape they're not ready for prime time) to finished (or relatively so). Grayed menu items indicate they're Under Construction, black font means that the page is relatively complete.

Summary  Under Construction.

Helpful Hints  Under Construction.

Welcome  The Impact of Cigarette Smoke on Plants study has an advisory group consisting of the Research Center Director, the Director of Substance Abuse Services for the Howard County Health Department and the Youth Service Coordinator for the Howard County Police Department. Their welcome to visitors to this Website is include in this page.

Research Center  The page describes the development of the Research Center which started with an idea in 1985 and evolved to a stand-alone facility in 2003 where all third, fourth, and fifth graders participate. This page includes a panorama-like display of photographs of the Research Center (taken in 2008).

Site Map  Under Construction.

Recent Updates  This page is revised each time the Website is updated with a short explanation of the changes that were made.

Previews  This page has a short slide show for each the original thirteen Activities that were pursued by students in the first year of this study (2005-06). It is different from the more extensive Home page slide shows added in 2007 and which is organized by STEM/Health disciplines.

Tutorial  This page uses one Activity/Objective as a way to show visitors the various features of the screens intended for LCD viewing. It is full of help buttons that explain what's going on when the visitor moves the cursor over and/or clicks various parts of the screen. However, at this point (February, 2009), it is somewhat out of date because many improvements have been made to the LCD slides but not updated in the Tutorial.

Helpful Hints  Under Construction.

FAQs  Under Construction.

Friends  This page recognizes the people who have contributed their talents to this endeavor. Without them, the Research Center would have substantially less effectiveness and the Website would not exist.

Sponsors  This page recognizes the organizations that have provided material and financial support to the Research Center. They have offered their support with nothing expected in return except that we use their support wisely.

Side Panel Menu 4, References

Summary  Under Construction.

Helpful Hints  Under Construction.

Dictionary  The Activity/Objectives documented for classroom viewing have a number of interactive features; one of which is to bring up the definitions of important words for discussion. All of those definitions are reproduced in this Dictionary. The Activity/Objective definitions are concise (at most, about a dozen words) so they will fit in the space available. In the Dictionary, that concise definition is repeated (as an opening sentence) and then followed by a more detailed description of the word, alternative definitions and an example sentence that is relevant to how the word is used. Each word also has a menu that takes the viewer to any of the Activity/Objective presentations in which the word is defined. In some cases the words have different parts of speech and tense. Generally only the root word is in the Dictionary, however, all of the varied parts of speech and tense are included according to their use in the Activity/Objective presentations. At this point (February, 2009) there are over three hundred words defined, but only about a quarter of them have a more extensive definition.

Misconceptions  Under Construction.

Health Encyclopedia  Under Construction.

Science Encyclopedia  Under Construction.

Technology Encyclopedia  Under Construction.

Engineering Encyclopedia  Under Construction.

Mathematics Encyclopedia  Under Construction.

Slide Shows in Home Page

The home page contains six slide shows, one each for Science/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics (STEM) and Health disciplines and the last one for Questions from the Kids. Most of these photographs were taken while the students did their work. Some were taken after the class, for example, to obtain close-up photographs of their finished experimental apparatus. The photographs in these slide shows, separated by a title slide, show a particular group of students working on some part of their activity. Depending upon the amount or complexity of the work, there may be as few as two slides or as many as thirty. These and other similar photographs will be used in the part of this Website designed for LCD projector viewing in the classroom environment. The Web pages for one objective of one activity usually contain about a hundred photographs to illustrate their work and the STEM processes they used.

It should be pointed out that the students' work is not organized by STEM disciplines. Rather it is organized by the activities that the students worked on; many of which contain more than one STEM discipline. The STEM-related parts of their work have been extracted from the activities and put in to their respective STEM discipline for the slide shows. The activities (such as Research, Ignition, Human Interface,...) are more logical groupings for the students than the disciplines themselves. It is difficult to do science, for example, without using mathematics. Additionally, as a technology activity matures, it may become an engineering endeavor or may go directly into a science activity.

Science Slide Show  The first slide show has photographs of the students conducting their scientific investigations. This research often followed development of the technology and engineering needed to do that work. The photographs are grouped by the following titles:

  1. Testing Focused Energy (Slides 1-6)  This was the first activity conducted in the study; an attempt to use a magnifier to ignite a cigarette. The student initially used a flood light, then tried to use sunlight. This was a difficult task because the cigarettes had to be ignited in a sealed container so no students were exposed to cigarette smoke during their experiments.
  2. Studying Electrical Measurements (Slides 7-11)  This student is learning about voltage and current and how to measure these electrical properties. Development of the ignition wire Technology was dependent upon this Science.
  3. Effects of Depriving Plants of Air and Water (Slides 12-20)  The purpose of this experiment was to understand what plants look like when their health fails so that a plant health scale could be developed. The students degraded the health of the plants two ways; by depriving them of water, and separately, depriving them of fresh air.
  4. Studying the Effects of Gases on Plants (Slides 21-39)  This was the second attempt to develop a plant health scale, but in this case both a gain and loss in plant health would be measured. They used carbon dioxide in an attempt to improve the plant's health and helium to decrease the plant's health. Strangely, the plants in helium appeared to grow while those in carbon dioxide didn't change much.
  5. Anomaly in Effects of Gases on Plants Data (Slides 40-63)  In this experiment the students confirmed that the helium environment contained no oxygen (which they assumed was displaced by the helium) but that the carbon dioxide environment did contain a lot of oxygen. They repeated the previous experiment but this time with better source of carbon dioxide.

Technology Slide Show  The second slide show has photographs of some of the technology that the students are developing. Some is ready for use in science, some will require engineering to put it in a useable form. The photographs are grouped by the following titles:

  1. Developing Ignition Wire Technology (Slides 1-6)  The first question faced by the SFES students was how to ignite the cigarettes safely in an enclosed container. The solution appeared to be in using electricity to make a wire so hot that it would light the cigarettes.
  2. Demonstrating Ignition Wire Technology (Slides 7-13)  After getting the ignition technology to work (in a glass peanut butter jar), this student constructed a demonstration model for the technology. It consisted of a tube to hold the cigarette in the upright position and surrounded by up to four ignition wires. If the cigarette went out (as indicated by the literature research the students had undertaken), it could be relighted by a lower ignition wire.
  3. Developing Human Interface Technology (Slides 14-30)  Since the plants were to be in an enclosed chamber for potentially long durations, there was concern that they might fall over and ruin the experiment. The technology was developed to reach into the test (plant) chamber with gloves that were sealed to the side of the chamber. It was also thought that this technology could be used in the ignition chamber if something were to go wrong in there too.
  4. Developing Air Flow Technology (Slides 31-39)  During the early part of this study it wasn't clear how the smoke would get from the ignition chamber to the test chamber. Students from several different groups developed the air flow technology so we could use either convection or forced air to move the smoke from one chamber to the next.
  5. Developing Fan Technology (Slides 40-45)  The circuit for a two speed fan was constructed and designed (yes, in reverse order) so the air flow could be controlled. Initially this technology was used in the experiment to study the effect on plants when they are deprived of fresh air and, separately, water. Later the circuit was used in the air flow device for the primary experimental apparatus.
  6. Developing Smoke Measurement Technology (Slides 46-56)  The students knew that they had to control the conditions of their experiments, or if that was not possible, at least be able to measure the conditions during the experiments. They wanted to be sure that the plants in different chambers got the same amount of smoke so a lot of time was spent on developing the technology to measure the amount of smoke using lasers and photocells.

Engineering Slide Show  The third slide show has photographs of the engineering that the students are doing in preparation for their science investigations. Some of it is based on their technology, some based on well known principles. The photographs are grouped by the following titles:

  1. Constructing the Transport Apparatus (Slides 1-34)  The Transport apparatus is the heart of the study of the impact of cigarette smoke on plants. It will hold the ignition and test chambers and most of the supporting equipment. It was the largest engineering activity undertaken in the Stevens Forest Elementary School Research Center; taking three months to design, construct, test, re-design,... It will most likely undergo continual upgrades as more is learned about conducting the experiments and new support devices are added.
  2. Testing Smoke Flow in a Glass Testbed (Slides 35-43)  The original air flow activity was a demonstration of the technology to move smoke from the ignition chamber to the plant chamber. This activity used that technology to connect two glass chambers (aquariums) with duct work. That apparatus was placed on the Transport for testing smoke flow by convection.
  3. Testing Smoke Flow in an Acrylic Testbed (Slides 44-63)  The second testbed consisted of two acrylic chambers designed specifically to be installed in the Transport. Both convection and forced air means were used to move smoke from the ignition chamber to the plant chamber.
  4. Upgrading the Acrylic Testbed (Slides 64-82)  The upgraded testbed provided a better duct mechanism and was reinstalled in the Transport apparatus. It was used to repeat experiments with the earlier testbeds that provided inconclusive results about the flow of smoke by convection and forced air.
  5. Constructing the Irrigation Apparatus (Slides 83-96)  The original Irrigation work was undertaken before the Transport was constructed but not finished until after the Transport was finished. The water supply consisted of a gallon milk jug suspended above the transport, with flexible tubes integrated into the Transport to water plants in the plant chamber.

Mathematics Slide Show  The fourth slide show contains photographs of some of mathematical work that the students have been doing in their science, technology and engineering activities. Math is useful everywhere. The photographs are grouped by the following titles:

  1. Converting Decimals to Fractions (Slides 1-9)  Most groups of students who use the hand drill or drill press have to convert decimal measurements to fractions in order to select the correct size drill bit. This is often a challenge for the students must do the conversion, find the drill bit closest in size but not larger than the decimal measurement, understand what the remainder means when doing a division problem, and think clearly to be sure that the answer makes sense.
  2. Using Right Angles (Slides 10-15)  T-Squares are used just about all of the time that wood or acrylic are cut at right angles. The students also see the relationships between parallel and perpendicular lines in this process.
  3. Graphing Relationships (Slides 16-18)  Some students make graphs of their data using Microsoft Excel on the Macintosh computers in the Research Center. They often also use quasi-algebraic calculations by using the formulas in Excel spreadsheets.
  4. Using Scale Drawings (Slides 19-21)  Several scale drawings have been made of the experimental apparatus that the students construct. These are often simple sketches in the laboratory notebook in which the pages are printed with 1/5 inch gridlines.
  5. Volumes of Spheres, Rectangular Prisms (Slides 22-31)  Often students have to measure the quantities associated with three-dimensional geometric figures. For rectangular prisms, the length, surface area and volume are measured and/or calculated directly. For a sphere, however, the students found the relationship between a cube (with 10 centimeter length, width, and height) and a sphere (with a 10 centimeter diameter) using a 1-liter water filled cubic container and a balloon blown up just enough to fit in the cube of water (hence, a diameter of 10cm). Measuring the amount of water that overflowed allowed the students to calculate the ratio of the volume of a cube to that of a sphere. From that ratio, and a diameter of a balloon, they could calculate the balloon's volume.
  6. Dimensions of a Rectangular Prism (Slides 32-38)  The students in this group designed and constructed a Plant Nursery in which future students will grow plant samples for their experiments. The Nursery is basically a long metal (open sided) box. The students had to determine the number and size of the metal supports needed to build the box; how many edges and corners and what lengths are needed to build to the correct shape.
  7. Averaging Scientific Data (Slides 39-42)  In this experiment, students put water absorbing material (WAM for sort, a.k.a., diapers) in the sealed aquariums along with their plant samples. The idea was to minimize condensation on the aquarium glass so the plants could be seen and photographed. They used two aquariums, each with their own WAM and got different results; the average of which seemed to be the most representative number.
  8. Multiplying Scientific Data (Slides 43-51)  This group of students studied plant samples (with and without exposure to cigarette smoke) under a microscope. The microscope had a single eyepiece lens and a turret of three objective lenses. They calculated the net power of the microscope by multiplying the power of the eyepiece by the power of the objective lens selected for viewing the samples. This part of our scientific world is described by a multiplicative process.
  9. 45° Angles (Slides 52-57)  The Plant Nursery (a rectangular prism, 15in x 24in x 48in) was not strong enough to support the lights and stress that it would encounter when moved. The designers of the Nursery put 45° angle supports in the four lower corners to make it stronger. They determined that, when the metal supports were anchored 13 holes from the corner (the legs of the triangles being, therefore, 13 holes long), the support had to be 18 holes long to just fit at a 45° angle (Pythagoras Theorem reigns!).
  10. Matrix Calculations (Slides 58-61)  The Plant Nursery group tested their apparatus by growing seeds in containers arranged in rows and columns. They could calculate the total number of containers by multiplying the number of rows by the number of columns. They could also identify their plants by their location; the center plant being at the coordinate 2,3 (second row, third column).
  11. And Then You Add One (Slides 62-69)  The water tray that supports the plant containers in the Nursery needed metal supports so it didn't bend under the weight of all that dirt and water. These students found that there you need one more support than the number of intervals you made; the math is n+1.
  12. Perimeter and Circumference (Slides 70-78)  This group found that you could determine the length of insulation needed to go around the top edge of the test chamber by measuring the chamber's perimeter. Except for some minor error where the insulation bent around each corner, the length needed matched their perimeter measurement. They also had to put insulation around the circumference of an air duct that had a diameter of 4 inches. They calculated the circumference and it closely matched the length of insulation they needed to go around it.

Health Slide Show  The fifth slide show contains photographs of the students learning about the health effects of cigarettes on people. The students often take a break from the plant/cigarette study to pursue these kinds of questions. They also do small experiments to address their questions and study smoking materials. The photographs of their work in this slide show are grouped by the following titles:

  1. Determining what Kids want to Know (Slides 1-4)  Most of this information came from interviews but more and more is coming from discussions with the students during their research. The questions in the interview were open ended and centered on what they know and what they want to know for both cigarettes and science.
  2. Searching the Internet (Slides 5-9)  Some of the students' questions can be answered by searching the Internet; providing they can locate at least two independent sources that confirm their findings.
  3. Looking Inside a Cigarette (Slides 10-14)  Students have examined cigarettes with a hand magnifier, conventional microscope and a digital recording microscope. When using the microscope they have found that shining light on the tobacco, rather than trying to look through the tobacco with the microscope's built-in illumination, worked well to see the tobacco.

Questions from Kids Slide Show  The sixth slide show contains questions (in a slightly abridged form) that the students asked about cigarettes and smoking. These questions are the basis of some of the research that they will conduct. Most of these questions came from a pre-research interview of fourth and fifth graders in the 2005/06 school year. As they started their research, more questions surfaced and were subsequently added to this slide show.

Student Questions

Introduction  Activity 21 (Smoking Info) has one objective (Kid's Answers) under construction. It is 98 screens long, an Intro screen plus one screen each for 97 questions the students have asked. The questions are being answered one-by-one as the students search the Internet for answers, confirming answers and photos to illustrate the answers. Many of the features of this Objective are the same as those in the other STEM-based Objectives but there are some unique features specifically developed for the Kid's Answers Objective as exlained below.

Matrix of Questions (Screen 1)  This screen has a 14x7 matrix of 98 small rectangles, an introduction and 97 of the students' questions. Rectangles in the matrix that have a miniature photo of a student and contain questions that have been answered. Those rectangles in the matrix left gray contain only the question. Running the cursor over the matrix displays the questions in the banner and, if it had been answered, an enlarged photo of the student who answered the question and his/her interest statement. The questions are in blue-italic font, followed by the student's interest statement in black font.

To get to the screen containing the answer to a question, click the matrix location of the question (the miniature photo of the student who answered it). Because the cursor is over the matrix when you click on a rectangle, when you get to the answer page, the cursor is in the same relative psition of the photo/graphic in the answer screen. Which photo/graphic (the primary or alternate) is initially displayed in the answer screen depends upon which half of the photo area the cursor was over when the rectangle was clicked. This is unlike the normal initial display of a screen where the primary photo is always visible when the screen first appears.

Artwork Illustrating List Items  In at least one instance, student's artwork is used to illustrate some aspect of the effect of cigarettes on humans. Those effects are in a list displayed where images or graphics are normally displayed. When the cursor is put over the list, an array of dashed-line rectangles is displayed. As the cursor goes over each rectangle, the student's artwork that illustrates the respective list item is displayed on the right side of the screen (not obsructing the list). When the cursor is clicked over a rectangle, the respective artwork is displayed with a full screen size view. Included in that view is a photograph of the artist and his/her comments about the artwork. Clicking the full screen view returns the display to the normal state.

Summary of the Activity Goals and Candidate Objectives

The first option in the Activities menu is a summary of the goals for the Activities undertaken (to some degree) in this study and their respective candidate objectives to be explored in the 2007-08 school year. This summary page contains four photographs illustrating each of the 17 Activities undertaken by the students so far. The goals are relatively stable but the objectives will vary as the school year progresses depending on how much work can be accomplished and the response taken to unexpected results.

Putting the cursor over one of the small photos in this summary page brings into view an enlargement of that photograph and, in the banner, the goals for the Activity represented by the photos. Clicking once will display an even bigger enlargement of that photograph or another photograph that provides an alternative view of the students' work. Clicking a second time brings in the candidate goals for the 2007-08 school year and a photograph (taken before the 2007-08 work had begun) illustrating the objectives to be pursued. The caption below each small photograph is a link to the summary page for the individual Activities. That summary page contains a representative photograph of each of the Activity's objectives that had already been completed and, if the objective had been documented provides a link to the students' work. All of these links are also available through the Activities and Objectives menus in the navigation side panel.

Summary of the Objectives for Each Activity

Move the cursor over the photos to see an alternate view; click on either view for an enlargement and explanation. If the research has been documented, the link below the photo will take you there.

The Summary Menu Item for each of the Activities contains four photographs (for each Objective) that summarize the work that the students did on their respective Objectives. While it may appear initially to be only a single photograph (for each Objective), moving the cursor over this (initial) photograph displays an alternate photograph in its place. These two photographs usually represent the start and end of the students' work or two views that encapsulate what the students did on the primary objective or some other important part of their work. The descriptive text in the banner, which appears when the cursor is over either view, is the same for both views; a generalization about their work. Clicking on either view displays an enlarged photograph of each respective view, or a photograph taken from a different perspective or time (to more fully depict what the students are doing). When clicking to display the enlarged photograph, the banner text changes to a more detailed explanation of what the students are doing. Each of these enlarged photographs has its own banner text. Clicking on the enlarged photograph hides it and returns the display to the smaller photograph of all Objectives for the Activity.

Putting the cursor over photograph (for any Objective) displays a progress "Thermometer" for that particular Objective. If an Objective is included int the Summary page then at least the Research had been done (and the first increment in the Thermometer is filled in). Each additional increment in the Thermometer represents a significant step toward completing the documentation of that work. That progress usually goes through the steps indicated on the Thermometer, but on occasion, there may be exceptions (and you will see spaces in the Thermometer).

As of July 2008, only four of the 91 Objectives (for which the research had been completed) have been documented. Their respective Thermometers indicates the progress and the link below the small summary photograph will take you to their work. The Objectives Menu items (which are identical to the caption under each Objective's summary photograph) will also take you there. The completed Objectives are relatively easy to find; their Activities menu items are red font as are the Objectives menu items themselves.

You can turn the initial photographs into their alternative views by moving the cursor from left-to-right across all of the initial photographs; or return them to their initial view by moving the cursor from right-to-left. The browser's refresh button will also return them to their initial state; which may be necessary if you get confused with some in each state if you had moved the cursor erratically across the photographs.

T

Text on LCD Screens

There are many interactive text features in these presentations of the students' work. They are designed to shelf student viewers of this work to understand and learn from the presentations. There is also a consistency in how the text is presented from screen to screen. Hopefully this format consistency will make it easier for the person controlling the screens to know when to bring in text (as well as the previously described photographs) when it facilitates the educational value of this work.

Thought Provoking Questions  The Welcome screen in some LCD presentations contain thought provoking questions. They are displayed in the banner when the cursor is moved over a picture of one of the students. Each student "asks" a different thought provoking question. At the end of each question is a "Hint" followed by a screen number on which the answer appears, not as an answer, but as a discussion by the students about what they did. So the answer isn't necessarily explicit, it will take some thought to figure it out. All of the answer are given explicitly on screen 35 which has a similar format to screen 1; cursor over the student's picture displays the question (under the photo of the group) and the answer in the banner.

The purpose of these questions is to give the viewers of this work something to think about. They don't need to be used all the time, it depends upon the time available and the willingness of the viewers to think about what they're seeing and hearing.

Some LCD presentations explain the work of more than one group. In those cases each group's section of the presentation in proceeded by a photo of the respective group that did the work (screen 1 would have all groups). So the thought provoking questions are repeated on each successive group photo; same questions, same hints.

Text Buttons (1, 2)  The space to the right of the screen photos is where text from the student's perspectives appears. The students don't write this text, the Research Center facilitator does. Later, the students confirm that it reflects their work and thinking. It uses their names and first person pronouns. There are always two paragraphs and each paragraph is displayed with the 1 button (for the first paragraph) and 2 button (for the second paragraph).

The normal flow in a classroom presentation of this work would be to click button 1 and read the first paragraph, click button 2, move the cursor over the primary photo (to display the alternate photo) and then read the second paragraph. Switching the primary and alternate photo between reading the two paragraphs is an effective way to present the material because, in general, the primary photo illustrates the first paragraph and the alternate photo illustrates the second paragraph. Even when they don't relate exactly, they're close enough that switching the photos adds attention getting relevant information to the presentation. Double clicking on either button 1 or 2 will hide the respective paragraph.

Vocabulary Button (V)  Most screens in the presentations have vocabulary terms for which definitions have been prepared. The normal flow of presenting the material would be to click buttons 1 and 2, then the V button. Buttons 1 and 2 bring up the first and second paragraph. Vocabulary terms in those paragraphs are in italic font; it is subtle, but does alert the astute students to which terms have definitions available. Clicking the V button changes the (subtle) italic terms to a (pronounced) blue-italic highlighting. All other text remains the same. Once the V button hand been used, the terms acquire interactive features. Putting the cursor over a highlighted term displays a short definition for it in the banner. Clicking the term takes you to the Dictionary where the short definition is repeated and then is followed by a more complete definition (note, as of Feb. 2009, only about a third of the more complete definitions have been written). From there you can use your browser's back button to return to the screen previously viewed with all of the text in its previously displayed state, unlike returning from this Helpful Hints page where the previously displayed text is hidden. I'm still working on why that difference exists.

A single click of the V button will display both the first and second paragraphs (if they had not already been displayed by the 1 and 2 buttons themselves) so you can go directly that full text view with one click. As with the 1 and 2 buttons, double clicking the V button hides the content displayed by a single click of that button, leaving the two paragraphs in their original state with the (subtle) italic terms. Double clicking the V button doesn't remove the paragraphs, only the blue-italic highlighting and interactivity.

The defined vocabulary words appear on all screens except the wrap-up screens for all presentations designed for LCD viewing in the classroom. They have not been included on the wrap-up screens (i.e., Conclusions, Lessons Learned, What's Next) so that the students' attention is not diverted from the main point of those screens. Where there are terms on those screens that the students are not familiar with, the teacher will have to take over in helping the students understand those words as a natural process of discussing the conclusions, lessons learned and what's next. There will also be terms used in the definitions (yellow-boxes in the banner) that the students may not be familiar with, as well as in the answers to the screen's question (green box in banner). I couldn't think of any way to conveniently bring up definitions for them since they are present only when the cursor is over the question or highlighted term.

Definitions of Pairs of Words  Dictionaries contain, for the most part, definitions of single words. Here, however, pairs of words are defined as though they were a single entity. The individual words may have different definitions or parts of speech from their stand-alone use. A laboratory, for example, is a place in which research is done; a notebook is a book (having many forms) in which notes (of any kind) are written. A laboratory notebook, however, is a very specific kind of notebook (bound, page numbered) used for very specific kinds of information (scientific processes and results written as they occur, written in ink). As individual words, both are nouns; when use together, one becomes an adjective for the other. Since the meaning of pairs of words can be quite different from their individual words, these paris are treated as a single entity from a definition's perspective.

Definitions of Pairs of Related Words  Some screens have pairs of words (that are not consecutive words acting as a single entity) defined with similarly constructed definitions. This is to make it easy to compare or contrast the words. There is nothing in the presentation that lets you know this aspect of the definitions is present; however, if you see two words defined that have obvious connection (or disconnection), chances are good that the definitions correlate.

Definitions of Multiple Related Words  Some screens have bulletized lists of related words, each of which has its own definition. Unlike the pairs of related word discussed above, these words don't necessarily have similarly constructed definitions.

Definitions of Words used in the Banner Text  There are times when a screen has a theme that shows up in the student text, the question, the photos, and the banner text. The words chosen for definitions are, in these cases, often integral to understanding that theme. In those cases (which are not explicitly identified) it would be useful to go over the definitions with the students more carefully than might otherwise be done with other defined words.

Important terms in the banner are not defined because I've found no convenient way to bring up a definition while the cursor is over an interactive feature that causes the text to appear in the banner. Its up to the teacher to help the student with those terms if they are not defined in the student text portion of the screen.

Definition Graphics  The definitions of words are displayed in a yellow box on the right side of the banner when the cursor is put over the highlighted word in the screen's text. Some of the defined words have graphics (art work or imagery) that also appear when the definition is displayed. Graphics are available for most nouns that can be photographed (e.g., ideas will be photographed later when I figure out how to do that). These graphics appear in the banner to the left of the definitions. Since the space available is about 4:1 (length:width), there is room for either a long photo or several more normal sized photos. The photos are small and may not be as easy to see as other photos in these presentations, depending upon the quality of the LCD projector.

Definition Graphics used Repeatedly  In some screens a set of words may be defined that have something in common and each illustrated with the same or similar graphic or photo. This is done to show the connectedness between the words. For example, the same word may exist in several multi-word terms (e.g., acute angle, obtuse angle, right angle). In those cases, the photograph of an object common to all might be used (e.g., a miter box) with unique annotations that focus your attention on different parts of the graphic or photo from one term's definition to the next (e.g., the various angles in the miter box).

Question Button  Every screen in every presentation designed classroom use with an LCD projector has (at least) one question below the illustrative photograph. The Q button displays the question. It is always in red font to make it stand out. The questions are related to the student text (two paragraphs to the right of the photo) and the answer is often in that text but as a narrative of what the students did as opposed to an explicit answer (to an as yet unasked question). The students who pay attention will, in general, have a head start to thinking about the question. The intent is to help the students succeed at figuring out the answers, not to stump them. An answer to the question will appear in the banner (with a distinctive green background) when the cursor is put over the question. Note, it is "an answer," there are often many possible answers to these questions; the point being to stimulate a discussion.

As with the 1, 2, and V buttons, double clicking the Q button removes the question and the capability to display the answer.

Multiple Questions  Some screens have multiple related questions displayed under the photo; both appearing with a single click of the Q button. Cursor over one of the questions will highlight it (change color of the text and underline it as is typical of a cursor-over movement for an interactive object) and display an answer in the banner. Cursor over the other question will similarly highlight it and display an answer for it in the banner. The flow will be best if you use the first question first; often understanding the second question is dependent upon (or at least helped by) seeing the answer to the first question. In some cases, the two questions are just different ways to ask the same question; in which case cursor over any portion of the two questions displays a single answer.

All Button  The fifth button (All) in this set of screen controls displays all of the text and enables all of the interactive features that would ordinarily be done one-by-one with the four preceding buttons. Double clicking the All button will remove all of that text. It doesn't matter which buttons were used to display the text, the All button removes it all. For example, if you only displayed the question (using the Q button), double clicking the All button will remove the question (as will double clicking the Q button itself). There is a lot of freedom to display or remove the components of text on these screens, depending upon your strategy for using them in the classroom.

One of the benefits of the All button is for your own review of the screen, one click and you see all of the text and activate all of the interactive features associated with the text on that screen.

All Text Button  There are three buttons in the banner (All Text, All + Vocab, All Photos) that are under the menus and that control what appears on all screens in the presentation. Being in the banner, those three buttons are available on all screens unless temporarily hidden below other information displayed in the banner by the various interactive features. The first of the three (All Text) displays all of the text for all of the screens in the presentation. It is equivalent to using the 1, 2, Q buttons on all of the screens individually (which would be a labor intensive task). The purpose of this feature is to allow you to go through the entire presentation (or a smaller set of screens) very quickly as a refresher before using it in the classroom. All of that text can be removed from all of the screens by double clicking the All Text button.

All + Vocab Button  This button displays all of the text and highlighted vocabulary terms for all of the screens in the presentation. It operates the same as the All Text button described above, except the vocabulary highlighting is also done. Now, when you go through the presentation for a quick review in preparation for using it in the classroom, you can see the text and vocabulary highlighting on all the screens. Double clicking the All + Vocab button removes all of that text, regardless of which buttons were used to display it.

All Photos Button  This button displays an enlarged (full screen) view of the primary photos on every screen. This is the same as if you had clicked the primary photo (to get its enlarged view) on every screen (a pretty big job) in the entire presentation. Since the enlargement covers the button that displayed the photos, you can not double click the All Photos button to remove the enlargements. Rather you just click the enlargement itself, just as you did to remove the enlargement if you had displayed it by clicking on the primary (small) photo on the individual screen. Clicking any one of the enlarged views (of a primary photo) will remove all of the enlarged views of the primary photo and restore each screen to its initially displayed state or the state you left it in before (e.g., text displayed on some or all of the screens). The up/down arrows (screen-to-screen navigation control) are allowed to poke through the enlarged photos so you can move screen-to-screen (with all enlargements displayed) without having to resort to the scroll bars.

If you had previously displayed a screen's enlarged view of a primary photo, clicking the All Photos button will display that one plus all others. If you had previously clicked an alternate photo to display its enlarged view, and then clicked the All Photos button, the alternate view stays visible (with the primary photo enlargement for that screen resides under the alternate photo enlargement). Clicking any one of the primary photo enlargements will remove all of the primary photo enlarged views; leaving any previously displayed alternate photo enlargements displayed. You can, therefore, display an enlarged view of either the primary or alternate photos on any of the screens. However, while you can remove all of the primary photo enlargements with a single click of any one of them, the alternate photo enlargements have to be removed one-by-one; unless you use your browser's refresh button which returns everything to the initially displayed state.

Tutorial

This part of the Helpful Hints contains the text for the Tutorial built into this Website. The Tutorial is a help-annotated copy of the Ignition (Activity), Prototype (Objective) page. This copy has help buttons next to the interactive features built into several screens of the page. When you use the mouse to put the cursor over a small help symbol, information about the adjacent interactive feature appears in the banner. Move the cursor off the help symbol to remove the banner information. Clicking the help symbol will take you to the particular part of the Helpful Hints page that provides additional information about the feature. To return to the tutorial, use the Back Arrow in your browser. The information below contains both the same banner information and the additional information.

Objectives  Each page describing the students' research has their objective(s), or component tasks, prominently displayed in the banner for all screens as continual reminder about the purpose of their work.

It is easy to get lost in the details and forget what the students are attempting to accomplish. Don't think that this is unusual; it is a problem that the students conducting the research also have. As visitors move from screen-to-screen within the page, the objective(s) stay in exactly the same place in the banner. The Conclusions screen (second to last screen in all pages) is written with respect to the objective(s) or the tasks within the objectives. In this Tutorial (the Ignition Activity, Prototype Objective) there are four tasks: (a) select an ignition design, (b) build one device, (c) integrate it into the prototype chamber, and (d) test the system. It should be noted that the choice of having four tasks within a complex objective, as opposed to four simpler objectives (a.k.a., each of the tasks themselves) was quite arbitrary. Accountability for what was to be done is the same regardless of whether you call them objectives or tasks; what happened and what understandings did you come to about what was explored. It should also be noted that there could be more than one conclusion for each task; there should be as many as are necessary to explain what happened for each unit of work.

All Screens Menu  Each page describing the students' research contains up to 28 screens. Visitors can go to any screen by selecting the screen's number or the screen's primary photo caption from this menu.

Visitors can use the scroll scroll bars on the right side of the page or the up/down arrows at the bottom of the screen to go through the screens one at a time; or use the All Screens menu to go to any one by name or number. The names in the menu are identical to the caption above the primary picture in each screen. The numbers in the menu refer to the screen numbers at the bottom right corner of each screen. Normally all menu items are black font; however, this tutorial is not a complete copy of the original Ignition Activity, Prototype Objective page. The screens not needed for the Tutorial were not copied and therefore have their menu deactivated (indicated by gray font).

Selected Screens Menu  There are generally too many screens in a page for a single viewing in a classroom setting. This menu lets the teacher select any of the predefined screens to show an abridged but coherent story.

Experience at Stevens Forest Elementary School indicates that nine screens is about the right number for a one hour class. This menu lets the teacher go to any one of the nine pre-selected screens. The double-down/up arrows (bottom right corner of every screen) can also be used to go through those nine screens in sequence (or back up in sequence). It is possible to intermix the down/up and double-down/up arrow controls. If, for example, you were using the double-down arrows (which will skipped some screens), you can use the up arrow to go to the screen immediately preceding the screen currently in view. This might be helpful if the there was something not clear on that screen for which the previous screen would help clarify. From that screen (not normally viewed when using the double-down arrows) the double-down/up arrows take you to the next screen that would ordinarily be viewed in the abridged presentation. Viewing the Selected Screens menu is also a good way to remind yourself which screens are included in this abridged set of screens.

Help (Symbols) Button  This button controls display of all the small help symbols. Click to show them, double-click to hide them. It's a way to minimize clutter and see what the screen looks like with an LCD projector.

The Help (Symbols) button exists only in this Tutorial. It controls display of help symbols in all screens of the tutorial; when you move from one screen to the next, that same button will be there. Clicking the button displays all help symbols in all the screens (so they are always available), double-click hides them all so you can scroll through the entire tutorial without the clutter.

All Text Button  As visitors view successive screens, the text explaining the students' work is initially hidden. Clicking this button shows all text for all screens; double-clicking hides all of the text again.

This text is initially hidden so that the screens are not overwhelmingly complex upon first sight. This also allows the teacher to meter out the text as she/he goes through the screens (using the buttons described below) at a pace that is best for the students to comprehend the content. There may be times, however, when it is useful to see all of the text when viewing all of the screens without having to click four buttons on every screen. As an example, the teacher might need a quick reminder of the content and only has a few minutes before the children show up for class. Clicking the All Text button one time brings all of the text (that is usually hidden) for all of the screens into view on their respective screens. Double-clicking the button hides all of the text on all of the screens again.

All Text + Vocabulary Button  As visitors view successive screens, the text explaining the students' work is initially hidden. Clicking this button shows all text + vocabulary for all screens; double clicking hides it all again.

This All + Vocab button performs the same function as the All Text button described above except that it also highlights the vocabulary terms defined on each respective screen. This might be useful to a teacher as a quick reminder of what terms are defined and provide him/her with an opportunity to quickly mouse-over a term to read the pop-up definition.

All Photos Button  Clicking this button displays an enlarged version of all pictures in all screens. Then the visitor can move through the screens viewing only those pictures. Clicking on any one of them hides them all.

When a visitor clicks on a standard size photograph in a screen, an enlarged version of the photograph is displayed. The photograph covers everything on the screen except the side panel and the down/up arrows (which take the visitor the next/previous screens). When using the down/up arrows, the next screen moves into place with its standard size photograph in view (unless it had previously been clicked and its larger version displayed). There may be times when the visitor may want to view all of the screens with the enlarged photographs displayed without having to click all of them individually. The All Photos button displays all of the enlarged photographs for all of the screens for that purpose. The down/up arrows remain visible (through the enlarged photographs) so the visitor can click from screen-to-screen viewing all of the enlarged photographs. Clicking on any one of the enlarged photos hides all of them. Note, clicking any one of the photographs hides them all even if the enlarged photographs had been displayed by clicking the smaller versions individually instead of all at once using the All Photos button.

Email to Research Center  This is the email address of the SFES Research Center. Clicking on that link will open your computer's default email account allowing you to communicate with the Research Center Director.

In some computer systems, there is an administrative override that does not allow you to use this link for email. If that is the case you can copy the email address sfes.rc@verizon.net and paste it into the TO: field of an outgoing email. Don't worry about overburdening us with email, we received three emails in the first six months that the Website has existed and none since; one from one of our own students, one from our school's website coordinator and one from a friend who tested the link for us.

Welcome Link  Clicking the Welcome link will bring you to a welcoming message from the three Research Center Advisory Group members. SFES is proud to have them guide this study and help our students learn.

In addition to a welcoming from the Advisors to this study, there is some information from the Research Center Director about how the students' work is documented and suggestions for you to think about if you decide to use this Website with your students.

Tutorial Link  Clicking the Tutorial Link takes you to a copy of the Ignition (Activity), Prototype (Objective) page. The page's help symbols call up concise/detailed descriptions of nearby interactive features.

The Tutorial has a format that may be different from what you might expect. It is a copy of selected screens from one of the students' presentations. It has tiny help symbols near the interactive features that provide a short description of how to use the functions and what they mean (via mouse-over) and more detailed information in the Helpful Hints page (via mouse-click). To return to the Tutorial, use your browser's back button.

Home Page Link  Clicking the Home Page link takes you back to the Home page which contains six slid ex shows that provide a sample of the students' S-T-E-M and Health research undertaken in this study.

We call this the home page because it is the top level page in the Research Center documentation. Although we also call this documentation a Website, it is really just a series of pages within the Stevens Forest Elementary School Website. The left side of our Home page contains the navigation controls from which you can get to all other pages, either directly or to pages that provide access to other lower level pages. At the top of the Home page is a banner that gives information related to the content area of the page. All other pages in this Website contain the same navigation panel and a banner unique to the individual pages.

Start Here Link  Clicking on the Start Here link will bring you to a brief explanation of how the Activities and Objectives are organized and how to get to them in this Website.

The information on this page is quite brief, fitting entirely on one screen. It explains how to get to the students' research (via the Activities and Objectives menus). It does not explain any of the other features of this Website.

Activities Menu  The Activities Menu provides links to the Summary page for each of the 20 Activities undertaken by the students. Activities not yet documented have grayed Menu Items as placeholders.

The major units of work in this study of the Impact of Cigarette Smoke on Plants are called Activities. There are currently 20 Activities summarized as follows:.

  1. Research
      • To determine what students want to know about cigarettes.
      • To search the literature for information relevant to our study.
  2. Ignition
      • To develop the technology needed to safely
          ignite cigarettes in an enclosed chamber.
  3. Interface
      • To develop the technology needed fix things inside the
          experimental chambers without letting smoke escape.
  4. Management
      • To develop the procedures needed to organize and carry out
          the technology/engineering development and experiments.
  5. Air Flow
      • To design, construct and test the technology needed to
          move smoke from the Ignition Chamber to the Test Chamber.
  6. Horticulture
      • To provide horticulture expertise and plant samples.
      • To devise and test scales for assessing plant health.
  7. Irrigation
      • To provide expertise on water/moisture issues.
      • To develop the means to water plants during experiments.
  8. Studies
      • To conduct studies in support of the overall study.
      • To conduct analyses in support of the overall study.
  9. Power
      • To design, construct and test power supplies and circuits
          to operate all equipment associated with the experiments.
  10. Safety
      • To advise students of safety related issues.
      • To develop safety procedures/materials for the study.
  11. Loading
      • To develop, construct and test the technology needed
          to load multiple cigarettes into the ignition chamber.
  12. Transport
      • To design, construct and test the apparatus needed to safely
          conduct the experiments outside of the school building.
  13. Prelim Experiments
      • To develop the methodology for conducting formal
          experiments of the impact of cigarette smoke on plants.
  14. Photography
      • To develop the procedures to photographically
          record the experiments and their samples.
  15. Instruments
      • To procure and/or develop the instrumentation needed
          to capture data associated with the experiments.
  16. Chambers
      • To design, construct and test the experimental chambers
          needed for igniting the cigarettes and holding the plants.
  17. Data Processing
      • To develop the hardware and software needed to
          process and analyze data collected during the study.
  18. Modeling
      • To build a model and use it to predict how
         cigarette smoke affects various organisms.
  19. Environment
      • To develop the means by which the environmental state
          of the chambers can be controlled and monitored.
  20. Formal Experiments
      • To design, conduct, analyze, document and present the
          experiments to study the impact of cigarette smoke on plants.

Objectives Menu  The Objectives Menu normally contains the Objectives for each respective Activity (from the Activities menu above). They were disabled in this tutorial since its not the real Ignition Activity.

To get to a presentation of the students' research in the main part of this Website (not the Tutorial) you first select an Activity (from the Activities menu) and for that Activity, you choose a particular Objective (from the Objectives Menu). The structure of the Website automatically changes the Objective menu's items to match those of the currently selected Activity. The Objective menu items for which the students' work had been documented are in black font; all others are in gray font (if you have a browser that recognizes the HTML code that grays out the items). Why are there any Objective menu items if the students' work hadn't been documented? The reason is that the structure of the Website includes places for all of work that had been done so that infrastructure could remain stable. To do otherwise would means that the menu structure that visitors interact with would be continually changing (difficult to implement, harder to deal with when you're browsing).

General Information Menu  The General Information Menu provides access to information about the Research Center, the Website, Help Information and our Contributors. Some of these pages are still under construction.

This menu is the same in all screens throughout this Website and, regardless of what screen is displayed, will take you to the page that you select using items in this menu. You can return to the page from which you called any of the General Information pages by using your browser's back button. When you return, however, the page will have been refreshed. This means, for example, that if you return to a page on which you had changed some of the interactive features, those features will have been returned to their default state (as they appeared when the page was first opened). For the LCD formatted presentations of the students' research, those feature can be brought back to their altered state by using the All (text) button.

References Menu  The References Menu provides access to a Dictionary (just started) and the Health, S-T-E-M Encyclopedias (not started); which will contain information from, or in support of, the students' research.

The Dictionary contains the definitions of all terms used in all of the pages intended for LCD viewing in the classroom. In cases where there are variants of the words (e.g., singular/plural, present/past tense) used in different pages, the root word will be the word indexed but separate definitions are included for all variants used. Mouse-over a defined term (in blue/bold/italic font) brings up a short definition of the term; mouse-click takes you to the portion of the Dictionary containing the word. The first sentence in the Dictionary for that term contains the short definition. That is followed by a more complete definition, an example sentence, and other information that students might find interesting. The Encyclopedias have not been written yet. They will eventually contain the S-T-E-M and Health concepts used in the pages intended for LCD viewing.

Copyright Information  The Copyright notice reminds visitors that this material is copyrighted and the Copyright link encourages widespread (but not-for-fee) use of the material for educational purposes.

Photograph Caption  Above each photograph is caption summarizing what is shown in the photo. The caption for each screen is listed in both menus in the banner and takes visitors directly to any screen in the page.

The caption may appear to be a screen title, but there is an important subtlety here. It is a description of the meaning behind the photograph, not the totality of the screen (photos, text, question, vocabulary). The caption for the photograph in the first screen is usually Welcome and does not change when the visitor puts a cursor over the photograph (to display close-up photographs of the students who conducted the research). In subsequent screens, the mouse-over brings up an alternative photograph to more completely illustrate the students research. In many cases, those alternative photographs have their own caption; text unique to that alternative photograph.

Photograph, Screen 1  Most screens are initially displayed with one photograph. Cursor over the photo in screen 1 displays a close-up of the students. Clicking displays an enlarged version and clicking again hides it.

The first screen usually contains a group photograph of the students who conducted the research; cursor-over displays dashed lines that separate the regions for which cursor-over displays individual photographs of the students. In subsequent screens, different things happen as described in screen 2 and 3 of the Tutorial.

Paragraph Text  Alongside each photograph are two short paragraphs that explain what the students did. The buttons at the bottom of the screen (numbered 1 & 2) bring in that text.

The two paragraphs of text on each screen usually explain what was done as illustrated by the primary and alternate photographs to the left of the text. Implicit in the text (and sometimes explicitly) are S-T-E-M and Health processes and issues that are worthy of discussion. The Teacher Guidance, discussed below, provides clues and suggestions for some of them. The text also provides a means by which S-T-E-M terms are defined and can also be discussed. Clicking the buttons labeled 1 and 2 below the text displays the text; double clicking the buttons removes the text.

Defined Terms  Putting the cursor-over a blue/italic term displays a short definition of the term in the banner. Clicking the term takes you to the Dictionary for a more complete definition. The V button activates the terms.

The V button activates all terms on a given screen, as indicated by the terms changing from italic to blue/italic font. Each screen contains at least one defined term, usually two, and in some cases as many as ten. How many a teacher would use in any one viewing would depend upon the circumstances in the classroom. If the students want to learn more, go for it; if they're bored with the whole thing, just select one. Generally, mouse-over for the short definition is adequate for the classroom and mouse-click to use the dictionary would be more better for one-on-one sessions with students.

Question Under Photograph  Put the cursor-over the question under the photograph (previously displayed by the Q button) to display a suggested answer in the banner. This should be the start of a classroom dialog.

The questions are displayed with the Q button at the bottom of the screen. The questions are often general or open-ended to stimulate discussions. A suggested answer can be displayed in the banner by putting the cursor over the question. In many cases, the answer to the question is implicit (and often explicit) in the text to the right of the photograph. A careful reading (or, as is more likely the case, a careful re-reading of the paragraph) will reveal that the answer was there all along. The answers to the questions are sometimes questions themselves, again, to stimulate a discussion and to point out that there are questions for which answers aren't available, or for which different people might have different ideas about the answers.

1st Paragraph Button  This button displays the first paragraph of text describing what the students did. Click and the text appears, double-click and the text is hidden. Note, terms to be defined initially appear in italic font.

The text for each screen is displayed by clicking the buttons below the location of the text using the first paragraph (1 button), the second paragraph (2 button), the vocabulary terms (V button), and the question (Q button) or displaying all of the text at once (All button). This was done to make the screens not be so overwhelming (because there is so little white space) when first viewed and to provide the teacher with a way to control what is displayed and when to display it. Usually the buttons would be clicked in sequence (1-2-V-Q) the first time the text is displayed and then if the screen had been refreshed (from going to the dictionary and then using the browser's back button to return), using the All button to bring the text back.

2nd Paragraph Button  This button displays (click) and hides (double-click) the second paragraph of text. Buttons 1 & 2, together, are intended to allow the teacher to meter out the information at a good learning rate.

See 1st Paragraph Button for more details.

Vocabulary Button  Click the V button to activate the vocabulary terms and turn them blue/bold/italic (double-click deactivates them). Mouse-over brings up a short definition and click takes you to the dictionary.

Normally you would click the 1, 2, V, Q buttons in order; reading and acting upon each in turn. Button 1 for paragraph 1 and button 2 for paragraph 2 (each paragraph with its vocabulary terms in italic font); button V to turn the italic terms blue/italic/bold and button Q to show the question and activate it to provide an answer. Double click any button and the text represented by the button reverts to its normal state for the normal sequence. Generally this means that the various text items disappear. Double clicking the vocabulary button, however, doesn't make anything disappear; it turns the blue/italic/bold font for the term back to italic. Click the All button and all four text items appear, double click it and all four text items disappear.

Question Button  Click the Q button to display a question under the photograph in red font. This question is usually a S-T-E-M or health related topic that may not necessarily have a straightforward answer.

The questions are intended to stimulate a discussion about some science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or health-related issue. By putting the cursor-over the question, an answer appears in the banner. The answer is one of many possibilities for the question; it may also be another question, or perhaps some optional answers. If the students read the text in the two paragraphs carefully, they will discover the (or an) answer. It is right there before their eyes.

All (Text) Button  When the screen is refreshed (e.g., returning from another screen), the text (displayed by the 1, 2, V, Q buttons) returns in its original hidden state. The All button displays all of the text at once.

The All button is also used to show all of the text on the screen with a single click from its initial viewing state as well as after a refresh (which brings it back to the original viewing state). The All button operates on all text within the screen currently in view. It performs the same function as the All+Vocab button in the banner except that the latter button operates on all text in all screens in the entire page; click to show the text, double click to hide the text.

Sound Play Control  Screens that contain the sound control have audio of the students reading the screen's text. The right-pointing triangle is the play button which turns to a pause button when clicked.

A good way to use the combined audio/visual dimensions of these screens is to click button 1 (to display the first paragraph) and then immediately click the play button in the sound control. Then, just as the audio finishes that paragraph, click button 2 (to display the second paragraph) and let the sound continue on. This gives the students the information in two dimensions and, hopefully, will increase their awareness of the content.

Sound System Controls  The sound control's down-pointing arrow is access to the system parameters. The "Plug-in Settings..." can be used to turn off the "Play Movies Automatically" if all voices play simultaneously.

If your computers sound settings are not set to play automatically, you might turn it on and check out the cacophony of voices. It plays for about 20 seconds. The simultaneous audio occurs automatically each time the file is downloaded from the Web server. Unfortunately, this happens each time you return to a particular objective (for example, if you view an objective, go to the dictionary and then return to the objective). If you need the setting to be on routinely, you will have to put up with the cacophony or turn it off every time you use this Website and remember to turn it back on when you're finished. If anyone complains about this I'll look into an easier solution.

Teacher Guidance Button  Cursor over the T provides teacher guidance on a screen-by-screen basis. It contains background, cautions, experience and questions; information indispensable for effective teaching from this material.

The screens in the pages describing the students' work are designed for viewing with an LCD projector in a classroom and therefore use large text. The Teacher Guidance is small font, designed for teacher review on a laptop or desktop computer in preparation for classroom presentation using an LCD projector. This is not information to be kept secret from the students; if students find it and read it, they will learn even more. The information is unique to each screen and provides some of the behind-the-scenes information that you would normally only get if you were there to see the research first hand.

Page Controls Help Button  Unlike the small help symbols in this tutorial, this larger help symbol is on all screens. It takes visitors to the section of the Helpful Hints that explains all of the page controls.

Additional Details Menu (when present)  This menu will contain the results of additional S-T-E-M and Health research done by students at SFES and other schools, if any want to participate. The menus will be unhidden when there is content.

As of this update, there is no content in any of the Additional Details menus and the one in this tutorial is the only one displayed. The Research Center staff responsible for the Website have not been able to keep up with the students' research. The problem is that the Website is quite complex and there is only one person who knows how to create the pages and make the updates. The current thinking is that the research for the Additional Details pages could be done by students in other schools and their results put into a standardized format that anyone could use to update to the Website. Time will tell if we have any interest and if the update process works.

Additional Details Menu (when missing)  Notice that the menu for Additional Details is missing on this screen (but it was in view on screen 1). This is the more normal state; appearing only if additional details have been documented.

Down/Up Arrows  This Website has been designed for classroom viewing using an LCD projector. While scrolling can be used, it is more effective to view it screen-by-screen using the Down and Up arrows.

The design of the pages that describe the students' research is more like that of a PowerPoint presentation than a Web page; the former being screen-by-screen, the latter being a scrolling continuum. The screen-by-screen format is easier for large group viewing (i.e., a classroom) where the teacher needs to keep the students focused. Scrolling is too uncontrollable and hard to follow when you don't have your own hand on the mouse. The screen size for this Website has been designed to fit on a standard 1024x768 pixel monitor, accounting for browser differences and nominal space allocated for menus and other trappings. The best way to view it is to adjust the size of the window to just slightly larger than one screen (with its navigation panel, banner and main content area). The area outside the screen is black so it is easy to distinguish the boundaries. The vertical scroll bars will still be visible and function normally so you can use them for large jumps, for example going from the first to the last screen. They also give a visual cue to how far through the page you are at any particular screen.

Double-Down/Up Arrows  There are up to 28 screens in each Activity/Objective; far more than can be used in one classroom sitting. The double down arrows take the students through the most important 9 screens.

The nine screens selected for this abridged presentation tell a relatively coherent, but incomplete, story. It is a specific set of nine slides and visitors can not change which nine are used. Clicking the double-down (or double-up) arrow takes you to the next (or previous) screen in the set of nine, jumping over all other screens. To the first order, its just like the other screens don't exist. You can, however, intermix the down/up arrows with the double-down/up arrows. For example, if you went from screen 7 to 10 (using the double-down arrow) and found screen 10 a little hard to understand (because you didn't see screens 8, 9, and 10) you could use the up arrow to go back up to screen 10 to see the content that led directly to screen 11. From there you could either continue back down to screen 11 (using either the down arrow or double-down arrow) or perhaps going to screen 9 (using the up arrow) or even go all the way back to screen 7 (using the double-up arrow). Keep in mind that you can also go from screen-to-screen using the either menu in the banner (one that goes through all screens, the other that goes through the selected nine screens).

Screen Number  This is the screen number. It is used in both menus in the banner (along with the photo caption) to take visitors to any specific screen.

There are, at most, 28 screens in a given Objective. Each screen is numbered consecutively in the lower right corner. The screen numbers don't change if the abridged nine screens are used; screen 11, for example,is screen 11 all the time regardless of how you got to it. Sometimes the page numbers are black, sometimes white (depending upon their respective backgrounds) so they can always be seen no matter what content the screen number is over. When the enlarged photographs are displayed, the down/up arrows and the screen number poke through and are always visible. Sometimes a black screen number (if it was on a light background) is changed to a white screen number (if the photograph had a dark region under the number).

Background Photographs, Screen 2  Cursor over each of these six photographs displays the relevant background information in the banner and an enlarged photograph or an alternative photograph from a different perspective or time.

The second screen of all presentations of the students' work contains background information specific to the current activity being described. Think of them as the scenes in a serial TV show where they show you what they want you to remember as a prelude to understanding the show you're about to watch. That's what this screen is for. While they look like the Summary photographs for the individual Activities, there is an important difference. The Summary photographs capture the essence or high level view of the Objective being illustrated; the photographs in the Background screen focus in on specific details of previous students' work that the current students needed to know about to accomplish their work. Clicking any of these six photographs displays an enlarged mosaic of all six photographs. While the individual photographs in this mosaic are not enlarged quite as much as they are when you put the cursor over them one at a time, it does give a enlarged view of all of them at once.

Highlighted Date  Cursor over a photograph displays text in the banner explaining the activity pictured and highlights the date. The highlighted date helps to visually identify the photograph for which the text applies.

When you move the cursor over one of these six photographs, it often disappears into the scene content. So when you look at the text in the banner you can't easily find the cursor to help you remember which photograph the text applies to. The highlighted date makes it immediately obvious. This same approach is used with the six picture arrays in the last three screens of every presentation (Conclusions, Lessons Learned, What's Next?). The dates in screen 2 are the month/year that the students pictured started their work.

Primary and Alternate Photographs  Most of the screens have a pair of photographs illustrating the main point of the screen. Cursor back and forth across the center line switches them and their title; click either for an enlarged view.

The Primary Photograph (the one that appears when the screen is first displayed) usually illustrates the first paragraph of the text on the screen and the Alternate Photograph (the one that appears when you put the cursor over the Primary Photograph) usually illustrates the second paragraph. Note, Usually. In some cases the Primary Photograph illustrates the totality of the screen and the Alternate provides supporting information or insights, for example, as a very high resolution close up of some tiny but important detail. This is the case in the screen where the ignition wire (Alternate Photo) can't even be seen in the Primary Photo.

Switching Between Primary and Alternate Photographs  Moving the cursor back and forth across the centerline of the photograph not only switches the photos but also changes the title if warranted and sometimes displays annotation.

Moving the cursor over the Primary Photograph displays the Alternate Photograph; continuing to move the cursor across the photograph (now the Alternate) does nothing until you reach the imaginary centerline at which point the Primary photograph reappears. Switching back and forth between the two photographs is often easier when done at the centerline than from of one edge of the photograph and then back into the photograph. All this assumed that you moved the cursor from right to left; the natural thing to do with this display. When you move the cursor back off the (Alternate) photograph, you leave the Primary Photograph back in view just as it was when you first viewed this screen. However, if you move the cursor off the image to the left, it switches from the Primary Photograph to the Alternate. So you can leave either photograph in view, even go to another screen and come back to this one with the Alternate still in view. This can be useful for some discussion strategies. And if you get totally confused, just hit the refresh button on your browser and the screen will revert to its originally viewed state. Of course, all the text goes away too when you refresh the screen.

Enlarged Sections of Photographs  Moving the cursor over some photographs brings up blue graphics outlining sections of the photograph. Enlarged views of those sections are displayed depending upon the cursor location.

Some photographs contain details that are difficult to see at the normal scale. In these cases moving the cursor over the photograph displays one or more graphic outlines and moving the cursor inside them displays an enlarged view of the outlined section. Moving the cursor around to other sections displays other such enlargements. Clicking anywhere within the normal scale photograph displays an enlarged view of the entire image as is done with other images that don't necessarily have the graphics. This image fills the screen (except for the navigation panel. Clicking that enlarged image makes it disappear.

Illustrations for Conclusions  These six photographs are specific illustrations for the general conclusions on this screen. Cursor over displays each photograph's respective text in the banner and enlarged view of the photograph.

The photographs in the Conclusions screen are similar to those in the Background (Screen 2). However in this case, the photographs are specific examples from the students' work that illustrate their conclusion. Move the cursor over any of the photographs and the descriptive text appears in the banner and an enlarged version of the photograph (same view or a different perspective) appears over the conclusions text. The picture number also turns orange (to match the banner text background) so it is visually obvious which picture contains the cursor.

Highlighted Picture Numbers  These photographs contain numbers (1-6) that are highlighted when the cursor is over the photograph. This makes it easy to visually connect the banner text with its respective photograph.

Picture Numbers within Conclusions  Putting the cursor over a photograph number (in the conclusions) displays the banner text for that specific numbered example but does not obscure the conclusions with an enlarged photograph.

The six photographs on this screen are intended to help clarify what the conclusions mean by example. Sometimes only one example is needed for one conclusion, at other times it can be two or more, on occasion even all six. When the cursor is put over one of the six photographs (to read the accompanying text in the banner) the enlarged version of the photograph obscures the conclusion. It may be difficult to remember the wording or even which example photographs apply. This problem is solved by calling up the explanatory text (without the enlarged view of the photography) by putting the cursor over one of the picture numbers just under each respective conclusion. That does the same thing as putting the cursor over the individual photographs but doesn't display the large (obscuring) photograph. The picture number in the lower right corner of the example photographs are highlighted just as though the cursor itself had been put over the photograph; thus allowing you visually connect the general conclusion, the example photograph, and the descriptive text.

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Vocabulary Terms (LCD Presentations)

Most screens in the presentations designed for LCD viewing in the classroom have several vocabulary terms identified and defined in the student text (to the right of the photographs illustrating the students' work). The terms are initially italic to give a subtle clue that its definition will come, without providing a visual jolt that might disrupt the reading flow intended for the screen. The normal reading sequence is to click the 1 button (then read the first paragraph displayed), then click the 2 button (then read the second paragraph displayed), and then click the V button which turns the italic word to italic-blue. Cursor over any of the terms (italic-blue font) displays the definition of the respective terms in the screen's banner.

The definition in the banner is generally 10-12 words which isn't nearly enough to understand the full breadth of many of the terms. It is, however, adequate to give the students enough insight into the word's meaning to understand the text. Also in some presentations is are photos illustrating the definitions. So far, only nouns have been defined.

Clicking the italic-blue term will take you to the dictionary where the definitions are expanded for some of the terms (eventually, all of them). Next to the term in the Dictionary is a drop down menu that takes you back to the screen where the word was defined in the presentation that you were viewing and all other presentations where that word had been defined. Depending upon the speed of your computer, load time for those other presentations will be longer than going back to the one already in memory. You can also return to the presentation by using your browser's back button. When you return using the back button, all displayed text and pictures will be as you left them. It doesn't work like this, however, when you use the back button to return from these Helpful Hints to the screen on which the circle-H button exists.

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