A unit on stereochemistry from Caltech's Chemistry Animation Project helps students to visualize how the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in biological molecules affects important chemical reactions.

What if the artistry and technological know-how that goes into producing special effects for Hollywood blockbusters could be applied to teaching students science?

The Chemistry Animation Project at the California Institute of Technology has been providing an answer. Using teams of students, faculty, and Los Angeles-based film professionals, the project has produced six videos that more than a million students worldwide have used to visualize concepts in chemistry and biochemistry. Another six videos are now in production, with such titles as "Atoms, Molecules and Moles" and "Binary Crystals." See: http://bond.caltech.edu/cap_info.html.

Caltech, already known nationally for its outreach to K-12 science teachers in the Pasadena area, also has been specializing in computer graphics. One of its courses, for instance, features colorful animations of molecules interacting, carrying out the biological processes that underlie health and disease. The course has generated excitement among students, leading some undergraduates to pursue graduate studies in structural biology.

•  Michigan State University has developed a CD-ROM-based instructional software package called BioSci Explorer. It's now developing a Web-based, interactive biology curriculum for first-year students.

• At Johns Hopkins University, digital resource kits include video archives of lectures, supplemental materials such as simulations, and software for electronic communication among students.

•  Purdue Universityhas integrated computers into virtually all of its laboratories from basic biology to graduate-level courses, resulting in computerized biology courses available on CD-ROM and the Web. It is now developing modules on topics such as DNA sequencing and molecular neurophysiology.

• A new facility for Computer-Assisted Learning in Undergraduate Biology at the University of Iowahelps students succeed in introductory biology courses and enriches the education of students in advanced courses.

•  Colorado State Universityis providing faculty members with intensive training to integrate information technology, such as the Web, into science teaching.

• The University of California - San Diego has produced an Interactive Lab Manual that students use with their experiments in the laboratory. The multimedia CD offers many "virtual experiments." See: http://www.hhmi.org/beyondbio101/ucsd.htm.

•  Stanford University has Web-based virtual laboratories that incorporate modeling and electronic journals.