James D. Slotta, Graduate School of Education, University of California, 4523 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1670, USA; Amy K. Kerber, 2300 Lexington Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55118, USA; Alex Strømme, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Bjørnsons Gata 12, Rosenborg, 7491 Trondheim, Norway, USA

How can we draw upon the power of the Internet to create new kinds of activities for science students? Traditional science instruction falls short of providing students with lifelong learning skills like critiquing evidence or comparing arguments about important issues. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a powerful new approach to the design and delivery of curriculum that targets these important learning goals. Funded by the National Science Foundation, this work is based on a decade of research into the use of technology in science instruction. It offers design guidelines for curriculum, as well as innovative technology called the Web-based Integrated Science Environment (WISE).

The WISE software provides an Internet-based platform for middle and high school science curriculum where students work collaboratively to explore Web "evidence" relating to critique, comparison or design tasks. For example, in one activity students design a house for a desert climate. In another they compare two theories about why deformed frogs are appearing in American waterways. Students navigate through activity steps in one frame of their Web browser, and survey real Web sites (found or created by project authors) in another frame. Components of the WISE software allow them to receive guidance, take notes, and interact in electronic discussions.

We developed a WISE curriculum called "Wolves in Our Backyard!" that helps students learn about wolf control controversies (e.g., de-listing, hunting, etc), and develop their own argument based on local evidence. In this curriculum, students learn about environmental science concepts (e.g., predator-prey relationships, biodiversity, carrying capacity) while developing important critiquing and argumentation skills. By exploring a current controversy, they also gain important understanding of the nature of science. The WISE technology scaffolds students as they critique "evidence" on different sides of the wolf control debate and create their own argument about the proper course of action for their geographical region.

We will present our curriculum design (including a demonstration) and describe how we "localized" the curriculum for different regions of the country (e.g., wolves in Yellowstone vs. Minnesota). We also describe how our curriculum was implemented in both U.S. and Norwegian schools, with an eye toward creating an internationally relevant and effective curriculum. We discuss the differences between the two nations in terms of wolf control issues, and how these were reflected in the U.S. and Norwegian versions of the curriculum.

We will present research findings about student ideas from each country, including their beliefs about science, wolves, and wolf control issues. We will also present a study of student learning, to assess the effectiveness of our curriculum unit in each country. Finally, we review the differences in how our curriculum was adopted by teachers in both countries. Clearly, nations differ in their approach to science instruction and assessment, not to mention in basic cultural differences that can result in wide variation of classroom atmosphere. We analyze differences in teachers' use of the WISE curriculum in each country in terms of differences in pedagogical flow (as defined by the TIMSS study).