| The program has worked so successfully as an education tool for North Carolina that the National Estuarine Research Reserve System has expanded the idea. |
Students in New Zealand are taking regular field trips to a North Carolina research reserve. So are students from Canada, Venezuela, and around the U.S. How are they doing it? It's as simple as logging on to the Internet.
"It's the next best thing to being there," says Susan Lovelace, former education coordinator for the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. "We have students in the field who act as the eyes, hands, ears, and fingers of the folks back in the classrooms."
EstuaryLive is an interactive, real-time Internet field trip to a remote North Carolina estuary each spring and fall. A camera crew follows naturalists and student guides as they explore sand dunes, tidal flats, dredge spoil areas, and maritime forests, and answer the questions of the children sitting in classrooms hundreds and even thousands of miles away.
The program has worked so successfully as an education tool for North Carolina that the National Estuarine Research Reserve System has expanded the idea, and for the past three years has produced Internet field trips to reserves around the country to celebrate National Estuaries Day. Eight EstuaryLive field trips are scheduled this year for September 25 and 26.
"The national program estimates that 88,000 students participated last year," notes Lovelace. "Each year it's gotten bigger."
It was in 1998 that the North Carolina reserve decided to use the Internet to bring the estuary to students rather than bring more students to the estuary.
Lovelace says they needed the alternative because the reserve was receiving twice as many requests for field trips as it had staff to fulfill. There also was concern about the potential environmental impacts of large groups of students traipsing through pristine areas.
"Technology looked like the thing that could solve all of these problems," she says.
The first year, "the technology used was pretty basic," Lovelace recalls. Microwaves were used to project several images per second from the remote island where filming was taking place. Someone in an office was typing the narration and answers to e-mail questions.
Every year, Lovelace says, the technology and production values have improved. Both video and audio are now sent using higher powered microwaves or satellites. Students still e-mail their questions in, but they are now answered live from the field.
North Carolina's EstuaryLive is filmed over three or four days twice a year, with about 2,000 students tuning in. Different sessions are geared toward different grade levels. A session filmed at night is produced live with an international student audience, and is available for other audiences to download.
A survey completed in 1999 showed that 85 percent of the teachers responding used EstuaryLive as part of their curriculum. In 2001, the program was expanded by the national reserve system, and in 2002 Lovelace and her co-producer Bill Lovin of Marine Grafics, Inc., were finalists for an international award from the Tech Museum in San Jose, California.
"Between staffing problems and schools not being able to take field trips like they used to, this has really solved a large stumbling block for us," Lovelace says. "It's a good program. It's nice when you have something that you hope will do certain things, and it turns out that it does."
For more information on North Carolina's EstuaryLive, point your browser to www.estuarylive.org. For information on National Estuaries Day, go to www.estuaries.gov. You may also contact the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve education office at frontdesk@ncnerr.org.
