I-Corps: Integrated Electronic Curriculum for Imaginative, Reasoning, and Inquiry-based Science Learning (eIRIS)

University Of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA

Investigators

Abstract

While many schools are now adopting interactive electronic books (eBooks) to reduce cost and increase the interactiveness of textbooks, these textbooks are largely designed to teach science terminology and facts that meet the requirements of standardized testing. These books are largely decoupled from the interdisciplinary data-oriented analysis prevalent in modern scientific careers. In addition, eBooks and the internet have perpetuated the replacement of hands-on labs with simulated labs in order to further cut costs,which undermines the teaching of scientific discovery, error, and ethics. This limited approach to science learning does not take advantage of new technology and big data resources that make low cost science equipment and real scientific data readily available to everyone. The technology developed by this I-Corps team proposes to connect these two science education tools together into one affordable package. The proposed eIRIS technology includes interdisciplinary electronic books focused on solving real scientific challenges using math skills, technology tools, and big data available on the internet or taken by the students themselves, accompanying digital teacher aids, including web-based training classes and lecture slides, and lab supplies bundled by lab activity, including digital scientific sensors used by scientists, all integrated into one affordable package. eIRIS will provide everything that the millions of homeschool students and K-12 public school communities with affordable hands-on interdisciplinary science education currently lack. The impact of this technology will be the emergence of new generation of young scientists that are more prepared with the interdisciplinary, analytical, and technical skills to succeed in college-level science classes, increasing diversity and reducing the cost of higher education through reduced time-to-degree.