This home page is a "portal" into a project by the Orono School System and the University of Maine Department of Computer Science intended to explore how the computer can be tightly woven into the learning process in K-8 schools. This will be done by defining and exploring a number of Computer-based "Microworlds", each allowing the student to explore the dynamics and multi-disciplinary nature of critical topics in the curriculum.

Experimental science seems the obvious place to begin exploring such dynamics, but the methods we are exploring have applications spanning the breadth of the K-8 curriculum.

In a proposal to the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance , we outline a plan to develop a number of microworlds in a way that is integrated closely to the K-8 curriculum. Our premise is that computers are not tools to be hidden away in a computer lab and treated as a separate topic area for study, but that they are tools to aid in the exploration of knowledge across the curriculum.

We are currently working on a number of microworld examples . Wendy Curry , Computer Science graduate student working on our Inquiry Based Learning Project, has recently given a talk to the Computer Science Department entitled Observations in Decentralized Modeling .

Note that our examples vary in complexity from those models that are well suited to K-8 students to those that graduate level research faculty find directly useful. This is as it should be. It is the nature of work that needs to be transitioned from Post-secondary to K-8 education.