ABSTRACT
Our focus in this chapter is on science education and on investigating what advances in computer technolog y an d socio cognitive theory can do t o make science more interesting and accessible to a wide range of students and teachers. Our work started with an emphasis on facilitating students ’ conceptual understandin g o f physics , White , 1981, 1983, 1984; White & Horwitz , 1988), which is an interesting challenge because physics i s generally regarded as the most abstract and diffcult o f al l the scientif c disciplines. As our research progressed, the emphasis shifted increasingl y toward enabling students to learn about the nature of scientifc models and the processes of scientif c inquir y (White, 1993b; White & Frederiksen , 1998; Whit e & Schwartz , i n press ; White , Shimoda , & Frederiksen , 1999).
