Computational Science and Education in the 21st Century

Upd 05nov2023 URL https://stewart.sdsu.edu/blackgold/index.html

Computational Science is the exciting blend of

• Science
• Computation
• Information development, retrieval, and processing
• Communications and
• Visualization

Skills needed to be successful

Computational Tools to Assist the Scientist

Some Activities of San Diego Middle/High School Teachers (STEP)

Science Discovery from SDSC

One of the things I have learned in working with the teachers in the STEP program was that they knew best what would work well in their own curricula, in their own school and the learning environments of their students. I would like to ask the Blackgold teachers to work through the CD rom version of this Internet site from the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), called Science Discovery, which I will leave with you, as well as access it on-line. Please work in groups to identify which interactive activies you feel correspond to your curricula and let's have a presentation of your findings at the end of our session.

Information Overload (the Web can be a Time Sink)

I've used the Web to help in teach my courses at SDSU. I'll devote a few of the beginning sessions to work in the Unix Computer Lab at SDSU to make sure the students become comfortable with the Web, since that's where their course handouts will be made availabe, and with email, since that's the mechanism I use for students to have extended office hours, ask questions and submit their assignments. I also schedule a Lab Session to explicitly cover the reality of the overwhelming amount of information on the Wide World Web, the lack of peer review of content and discuss ideas to try to organize the pertinent information. At the end of the lab seesion on Info Overload, I remind the students to ask themselves, reguarly when on-line, What did you do today? Then What did you accomplish today? Then Is all your homework done for tomorrow, yet?

Let's have some fun and EXPLORE!

Some Thoughts on Using the Internet for Information - It's Dynamic! (which isn't always good)