How Can Classificatory Structures Be Used to Improve Science Education?

Abstract

There is increasing evidence that libraries, traditional and digital, must support learning, especially the acquisition and enhancement of scientific reasoning skills. This paper discusses how classificatory structures, such as a faceted thesaurus, can be enhanced for novice science learning. Physical geography is used as the domain discipline, and the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype project provides the test bed for instructional materials and user analyses. The use of concept maps and topic maps for developing digital learning spaces is briefly discussed.