Yufeng Qian 3 D Multi - User Virtual Environments : Promising Directions for Science Education

Centered on the theme of scientific inquiry, this article describes a number of 3D multiuser virtual environment programs and their potential for improving science learning. Our nation's students fall short in science. The Department of Education's 2000 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), also known as " The Nation's Report Card, " showed no improvement in student science performance between 1996 and 2000 in grades four and eight, and a slight decline in performance by twelfth-graders. While results from the 2005 NEAP indicated improvement for elementary school students in science achievement over the last decade, middle school scores have remained flat, and high school scores have continued to decline since 1996, in sharp contrast to the large gains in math, and slower but still significant gains in reading (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2005). A recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that American students scored below average on science literacy in the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), trailing their peers in 16 of 30 industrialized countries (National Center for Education Statistics, 2007). Lamenting the " statistically and morally significant " fall in science results, Rod Paige, former Education Secretary, warned that " (e)veryone should be concerned—82% of our high school seniors are not performing at the proficient level in science, " (Leath, 2001) which could threaten the country's economic future and damage national security in the long run. In reaction to U.S. students' science performance in 2006 PISA, Senta Raizen, Director of WestEd's National Center for Improving Science Education, pointed out that U.S. students " seem to lack a strong grasp of the nature of science, and of science's important role in society " (Cavanagh, 2007). What obstacles have hindered U.S. students' performance in science? While studies have identified a number of factors that have contributed to the decline of science education, such as shortage of highly qualified teachers and inadequate support from the public system and community, two pressing issues are in need of a rapid response. First, compared to reading and math, which by law are the nation's educational priority, much less attention and thus relatively limited time are devoted to science teaching, especially in elementary schools. The results of the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education: Trends from 1977 to 2000 showed that, while mathematics continues to be taught virtually every day in grades 1-12, only about 70 percent of …