Researchers Help Chicago Schools Onto the Internet

摘要

CHICAGO—Eighth-grader Semaj Bunch pulls up the home page of a German gamma ray observatory on the World Wide Web, while his classmate, George-Marie Garber, surfs for ;nformation on the sugar content of orange juice. It's time to work on projects forthe upcoming science fair, and for 40 minutes just before lunch period, scarcely an eye wanders from 32 screens in the computer lab at the William H. Ray Elementary School on Chicago's South Side. That scholarly ramble from glucose to gamma rays owes its existence to a pathbreaking collaboration between the University of Chicago and the city's public schools that has already brought fast Internet access—and the tools and training to use it—to 12 neighborhood schools.