Rice receives $1.1M for Web lessons

Rice receives $1.1M for Web lessons

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more than $1.1 million to Rice University’s Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning (CTTL) for the creation of several new Web-based science adventures for middle school students. The grants call on CTTL to expand its popular “Reconstructors” and “MedMyst” series with new episodes, including one that teaches adolescents about the dangers of alcohol abuse.

The alcohol abuse program will be modeled after the highly acclaimed “Reconstructors” series that teaches kids about the biological effects of opiates. In that series, set in the year 2252, students take on the role of medical detectives who try to “reconstruct” the history and biological effects of different drugs after a plague that killed millions led to the loss of past medical knowledge.

“We have found that Web adventures capture the attention of this age group and create the perfect vehicle for teaching students about important science and health issues,” said Leslie Miller, executive director of CTTL.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol is the substance adolescents are most likely to use and abuse. Miller said CTTL’s curriculum will incorporate National Science Standards, and it will provide science teachers with a program that complements prevention efforts at their schools.

The second NIH grant is for new installments of CTTL’s MedMyst series. Short for Medical Mysteries, MedMyst is another Web adventure that teaches middle school students about infectious diseases and their causes. In addition to the Web adventures, MedMyst includes materials for classroom activities and a magazine. Each part of the curriculum is designed to engage students in problem-solving activities they aren’t likely encounter elsewhere.

New funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will be used to create new adventures and to translate three existing adventures into Spanish. CTTL also will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy of the new materials and will try to expand the reach of MedMyst II by linking with other Web sites, making presentations at national professional meetings and publishing research data related to its use.

CTTL is partnering on the MedMyst II project with middle school educators, scientists and clinicians from Baylor College of Medicine, the John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science, the University of Texas Health Science Center–Brownsville, and the University of Texas Health Science Center–Galveston.

Field testing of the Web adventures will take place in middle school science classrooms across the country. All components of the two programs are available free of charge on the Web.