Awareness of the earth and possibilities for new science education in the internet age

Abstract

The internet as "the nervous system of global size" and multimedia technology have changed our global experience radically and suggests possibilities of entirely new approaches to the conventional education of sciences and the environment. They are not merely the changes where printed text books are converted into dynamic things with vivid appeal to our senses and information about the world's museums and art galleries, digitalized and shared by all. If the seismic activities occurring every day in various parts of the world can be seen in real form directly through the internet by all the people of the world, how will children's views of the earth change and how will their scientific understanding improved? If there was a system whereby one could monitor, in real time, how one member or others of the world net surf the global home pages, and if one could follow the "moving" process on the internet, children would certainly appreciate the presence of the internet as a global network of information. The web site "Sensorium" (http://www.sensorium.org) was created by us in an effort to put these live experiences of the internet into design. Sensorium is not a site merely to digitalize and list the existing knowledge and data. It is an experiment for the Digital Museum as a new "forum" where we may experience and share a moment. It is also an attempt to create tools for science and environment education which are only available on the network.