EstuaryLIVE Webcam
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

To view a video clip from one of the field trips, choose one of the links below (may take some time to download):

Quick Time movie clip (7.7MB)

RealPlayer streaming movie clip may be viewed with RealPlayer (about 2 min.)

Photo by Cris Crissman

This is a chronicle of EstuaryLIVE, a project that uses wireless video transmission and internet technology to enable thousands of preK-16 students across the country to visit the Rachel Carson Site of the National Estuarine Reserve in Beaufort, North Carolina. The field trip is webcastóreal time, live streaming video from an island on the Reserve (for a semi-live view of the field trip site, visit the EstuaryLIVE webcam at http://www.ncnerr.org). This is not some heavily funded, glitzy technology project but a grassroots internet field trip developed by a partnership of naturalists, educators, and a professional videographer/internet enthusiast. 

In this article, the project's organizers in partnership with a participating middle school team describe the perspectives and issues involved. Our focus is on how to best integrate such a technology-enhanced, interdisciplinary project into the middle school curriculum. We strive to move beyond the gee-whiz of technology to technology supporting real-life, real-world conceptual understanding and critical thinking. What's more, through this virtual journey we want students to learn to care about this special part of their world and to join in important conversations about environmental issues. In these chronicles, we describe the technology required, the curriculum framework, and the values and challenges of such a project. We also introduce you to the project's extensive website and evolving future plans. 

This chronicle is organized into six main sections: 

• EstuaryLIVE: The Largest Field Trip Ever! . . . an introduction to the Project
• EstuaryLIVE in the Classroom . . . a description of EstuaryLIVE Project implemented in two contextsóa middle school and an undergraduate Reading in the Content Areas course for preservice elementary and middle school teachers
• Lessons Learned from EstuaryLIVE . . . reflections and insights pertaining to the practical as well as the theoretical
• What Next? . . . future hopes and dreams for the Project
• Related Sites 
• References

1998 Video: "Waters of Life"
 
 
 
 

Photo by Gregory Janicke

North Carolina's beaches are famous for their deep sandy shores and warm ocean waters. Not so well-known are other estuarine habitats such as grasslands, marshes, tidal flats, and maritime forests. Recreation draws people to the estuaries. Locals and tourists sun, swim, fish, walk, and bird-watch. But the estuaries serve a larger purpose in the environmental scheme. They provide a nursery for much of the seafood we enjoy, a storage basin for the nutrients washed down from the inland, a sponge to soak up excess run-off, and a buffer against storms. 

The North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve was established in 1982 to help keep these valuable estuarine habitats healthy. The Reserve accomplishes this mission through long-term research, monitoring, and education. Field trips to the Reserve by the public and school groups are an important part of the Reserve's educational program. Many school children in eastern North Carolina but few in the Piedmont and Mountain regions are able to take field trip excursions to one of the four estuarine reserve sites: Currituck Banks, Rachel Carson, Masonboro Island, and Zeke Island. 

We wanted to explore how technology could be used to further the educational mission of the Reserve, so we decided that we would find a way to "bring" more people to the estuary. The Rachel Carson Reserve, a series of narrow islands just across from Beaufort, was the nearest to a populated area with internet access and seemed the most likely site to begin our experiment. 

Our online field trip began in the fall of 1998 when approximately 2000 diverse students from elementary classrooms to teacher education classes at East Carolina University traversed the internet to reach this unique environ off the North Carolina coast. Two field trips (Spring and Fall 1999) and approximately 4000 students later, the field trip has become a semi-annual event that many students and teachers look forward to. Participants from eight states in addition to North Carolina have now joined our trips. Though we are continuing to collect research data in the form of surveys and interviews with participants, we decided it was high time to begin to write about what we have learned so far. 
 
 

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