Local Students Embark on Virtual Expedition
to Peruvian Rainforests
By John Karl
MADISON, Wis. (March 8, 1999)
– Beginning Tuesday, more than 1,800 fourth- through ninth-grade students in the Madison area will join Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard and his team of explorers for a virtual adventure deep within the rainforests of Peru.
The students will meet at the BioPharmaceutical Technology Institute, the
education arm of the Promega Corporation, in
Fitchburg on March 9-12 for a series of live broadcasts from the treetops of the
rainforest canopy, the dense undergrowth of the jungle, and the muddy tributaries of the
Amazon. Experts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
will be on hand to answer students’ questions.
Huge spiders, tiny frogs, and other exotic creatures will be beamed live from Ballard’s jungle outpost to Madison and other communities in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Bermuda. The event is part of the international JASON Project, "Rainforests: A Wet and Wild Adventure," a year-long project focusing on the plants, animals, climate, and hydrology of rainforests. The live broadcast is an update on the project, bringing the rainforest to thousands of students via satellites, the Internet, and more than 30 tons of advanced telecommunications equipment hauled into the rainforest by the JASON expedition.
Madison-area
students participating in the project are measuring biodiversity, water clarity, soil pH,
and other environmental factors in local ecosystems. During the live broadcast, they will
observe researchers taking the same measurements in the rainforest.
Students in some locations will relay questions in audio and video to the Amazon, and scientists there will respond in real time. Students in Madison and many other locations will submit questions via the internet as they watch ecologists, herpetologists, and biologists explore the rainforest environment.
Madison students will also tackle some of the communications challenges faced by the jungle expedition. They will make their own research activity available to the Internet community by filming science experiments and loading the footage on the award-wining
Madison JASON Web site, hosted by University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.The JASON project was founded in 1989 by Robert D. Ballard, following his discovery of the wreck of the RMS Titanic. After receiving thousands of letters from children who were excited by his work, Ballard and associates developed the JASON Project to enable teachers and students worldwide to take part in scientific explorations via interactive telecommunications technology.
For More Information:
Mary Lou Reeb, Education Coordinator, (608) 263-3296Created in 1966, Sea Grant is a national network of 30 university-based programs of research, outreach and education dedicated to the protection and sustainable use of the United States' coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources. The National Sea Grant Network is a partnership of participating coastal states, private industry and the National Sea Grant College Program , National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration , U.S. Department of Commerce . The University of Wisconsin Sea Grant College Program is administered by the Sea Grant Institute on the UW-Madison campus in Madison, Wisconsin.
Posted 03/12/99 by John Karl
All contents copyright 1998 University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute
Canopy photo copyright JASON Foundation for Education
http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/communications/news_releases/JASONtelep99.html
