The primary objective of the project is to determine the feasibility of increasing the quantity and quality of science education in elementary schools through the utilization of science education as the content of choice for a relatively new addition to the elementary school curriculum, Foreign Language. The inclusion of Foreign Language in the Elementary School, more commonly called FLES, is a rapidly growing movement with 22 percent of the nation's elementary schools already engaged. FLES leaders advocate content-based instruction through integration of language with regular subject matter. Further, FLES leaders recognize the strong potential that good science education offers for language development. Unfortunately, most FLES teachers have weak science backgrounds so, without intervention, their content of choice will not be science. The project proposes to research the potential of level III interactive Videodisc technology as a teacher training medium to prepare and encourage FLES teachers to utilize science as their content, thereby reaching as many as 800-900 students per week per FLES teacher. Further, researchers are exploring the potential impact of this science instruction in terms of encouraging the regular classroom teacher to teach more science. A prototype authored checkdisc to test this concept is being utilized.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: A prototype that can be replicated easily across different grade levels, different science content areas, and different languages is being produced. FLES leaders are strongly supportive of the project which enhances its eventual marketability.
