Diversity of cyberinfrastructure: an opportunity for enhanced education and research

The development and rapid expansion of Cyberinfrastructure have produced increasingly data-rich linked networks, which open up new possibilities and challenges for using data in mathematics, science, and engineering education. The objective of this paper is to make educators aware and to appreciate the benefits and challenges of using the newly-emerging Cyberinfrastructure in their courses and other educational activities. It is also to locate potentially-useful large digital databases and to highlight respective strengths, features, and potential educational applications. This paper presents practical Cyberinfrastructure-based projects that can be applied in a variety of educational settings.