Fostering Learners’ Collaborative Problem Solving with RiverWeb

High-school students’ understanding of science as a result of using the RiverWeb Water Quality Simulator (WQS), a Web-based water management simulation, is described. Eight student pairs participated in a series of science activities, which revolved around using the WQS to explore the impact of land use on water quality. Students received scaffolded pedagogical support from several teachers while they completed three on-line science inquiry units integrating curriculum issues related to chemistry, ecology, and environmental science during a week-long period. The students’ emerging understanding was assessed through an analysis of their discourse during collaborative problem solving episodes conducted throughout the week-long data collection period. The results indicate that RiverWeb fostered student engagement in sustained inquirybased activities and scientific reasoning. However, students experienced a number of difficulties (e.g., comparing and analyzing multiple representations, reformulating hypotheses, defining tasks). Findings will be used iteratively to build new features such as content assistants, argumentation palette, and visualization tools to support students’ inquiry-based science activities.