MSSD Teams up with JASON Project, Internet2 on Coastal Research

By Susan M. Flanigan

published in On the Green on February 7, 2003

Happenings Archives

Dr. Robert Ballard, Titanic discoverer and famous deep-sea explorer, pays serious attention to his fan mail. One week after returning from his discovery of the sunken Titanic he received over 16,000 letters from school children who wanted to know how they could become explorers like him.

From this interest, Ballard created the JASON Project where teachers and students, or Argonauts as he calls them, have joined him at a new expedition site every year for 13 years for two weeks of intensive study. Through the powers of technology, these studies will now be made available to science students and their teachers at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD) through a Gallaudet University hook-up to Internet2 established in May 2002. Internet2 is a consortium of 200 universities working in partnership with the government to develop advanced network applications and technologies on a non-commercial basis. Last year, the JASON Project XIII: Frozen Worlds expedition to Alaska served as a pilot project to test Internet2.

This year, MSSD students will be participating via Internet2 in the JASON Project XIV: From Shore to Sea study. Students will be exploring the terrestrial and marine ecosystems that extend from California's coast to the Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary to learn how such systems affect life on the planet. "Our students are focusing on the part of the curriculum related to Pinnipeds [animals such as sea lions, walruses, and seals]," said MSSD science teacher Mary Ellsworth. "During the last week of January, we will be able to observe a live, captioned broadcast from the Channel Islands through a connection to the University of Rhode Island. Because of Gallaudet's connection to Internet2, we have the potential to participate in the live broadcast, with our students asking questions from a mobile camera on site at MSSD." Students can watch the broadcasts live and also view previous broadcasts downloaded at high speed via Internet2.

In Phase Two of the curriculum, MSSD will be teaming up with students in Irvine, California, the Rhode Island School for the Deaf, and the Indiana School for the Deaf. "These schools together have formed the very first Virtual Argonaut Team," said Ellsworth. "The JASON Project and a group called OSHEAN at the University of Rhode Island are looking for ways to promote Internet2 using JASON as a model of things that can be done with K-12 grades. As a team we'll work on some special JASON curriculum with students, and we'll participate in Internet2 video conferences with a science expert and also probably with Raimondas Doblmeier, the first deaf student Argonaut to the JASON Project."

The teachers on the Virtual Argonaut Team at MSSD are Mary Ellsworth, Mark Tao, Barbara Fields, Dan Lasher, and Sarah Raymond.

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