Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This project investigates student learning within an innovative model of classroom learning: student-generated and maintained nodes of "expertise" along the Internet superhighway. Using Internet access as the backbone for classroom activities in the environmental and atmospheric sciences, the Kids as Global Scientists (KGS) project is contributing insights into: 1) h o w the technology can be used to promote middle school students' construction of knowledge, 2) the nature of distributed expertise across child- developed and focused Internet nodes, and 3) the design of K-12 appropriate Internet interfaces. In particular, the K G S project recognizes that current Internet resources are not focused with a K-12 audience in mind. Therefore, a shift in focus from adult to child-focused Internet nodes w a s established. In addition, the development of communities of learners which support the exchange of information between diverse and geographically distinct learners is investigated. Results indicate that becoming student experts in particular areas of science that other students value, and being responsible resources for other students' learning increases the "use value" of students' knowledge and encourages the learning of real science from first hand sources.