Spring 2003
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Chief Technology Officer Networks -
SUSE for the Future
Noteworthy Events
Alumni Resources

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Rosa Navarro, STEP ’03, and Jeannie Lythcott, STEP Science Lead Supervisor, conduct a global warming study at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Preserve. Using probeware technology, they collected temperatures at three heights – below the soil, at soil level, and one meter above the ground; the technology allowed them to instantly transmit and analyze the data.




Since November, 1999 the Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers for Technology (PT3) federal grant has enabled faculty to explore how various technologies can support powerful teaching and learning in the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP). The grant’s long-term goal is for STEP’s teacher candidates and cooperating teachers to model technology in their classrooms and encourage secondary students’ learning through technology .Through the grant, STEP has developed exciting new partnerships with secondary schools in the Bay Area.

The “Probeware Collaboratory,” one of the grant’s projects, includes a learning community of Bay Area science teachers, STEP teacher candidates, and STEP instructors. Beginning in summer 2001, Social Science Research Associate and STEP Instructor Susan Schultz (PhD ’99) and a cohort of STEP science teacher candidates began collaborating with professional scientists at Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve to study the effects of global warming.

The unique study uses probeware, a computer-based technology, to measure air temperature, carbon dioxide concentrations, nitrogen levels, and soil temperature. This June, eighteen STEP cooperating teachers will use probeware to collect and analyze soil temperature data. These science teachers will teach high school students to collect and analyze temperature data at their school site using probeware. The students’ data will be posted on a collaborative website with Jasper Ridge scientists and become part of a real scientific study.

Everyone involved with the collaboratory is excited about the opportunities for learning that probeware enables, especially helping students to visualize abstract concepts. Probeware involves a probe that resembles a thermometer connected to a handheld device the size of a cell phone. Software within the device interfaces with a computer, allowing students to collect data with the probe and then analyze it in “real time.” The device can record temperature, motion, velocity, ph levels, sound, and EKG, among other things.

According to Schultz, this type of data is difficult to acquire through traditional labs and the data can be more easily graphed and analyzed using the software.

Schultz commented on the success of the project, saying, “The real advantages of using this technology is that it helps teachers create opportunities for students to collect real time data that is not normally accessible in traditional labs, analyze graphical representations of the data, and puzzle over the implications of the findings. If one acknowledges that students learn science concepts best when they are actively engaged in scientific investigation then these learning opportunities have the potential to maximize student learning.”

Physics teacher Todd Dickson (STEP ’02) said, “With the technology, students see really powerful demonstrations that these physics equations actually work in real life to predict real-life outcomes.” For more information on this project contact Dr. Susan Schultz at ses@stanford.edu.