The Webcast - A Real Time Data Collection Activity

Since the broadband ship to shore wireless network (described on the Wireless Technology page) allows us to explore the seafloor of Long Island Sound with the ROV in real time, it also provides a great in-class learning opportunity. This also provides us a great opportunity to assess the effectiveness of delivering live science into the classroom via these webcasts. Furthermore, we will utilize a new technology developed by VBrick Systems from Wallingford, CT called VBPresenter. This technology allows us to utilize a familiar PowerPoint slide show that has the live video embedded on one side. Furthermore, it also provides an "Ask a question" link that will send us a question directly on board the ship and a "Resources" page that includes additional links to learn more about invasive species and Didemnum.

The webcast will introduce the issue of invasive species in LIS, with a focus on the sea squirt, provided by Dr. Robert Whitlatch, a recognized marine ecologist and invasive species expert from the University of Connecticut's Department of Marine Sciences. From there we will switch to the ROV that will begin a transect over the ocean floor of the Sound in an area with known Didemnum invasion. We will conduct this transect as research scientists would, noting the start and end time and locations along the transect. During the transect we will stop the ROV every minute for 5 seconds and take a downward looking still image and video frame grab of the seafloor from one of two video cameras mounted on the ROV. This will provide you several teaching opportunities.

Figure 1. Photograph showing colonies of the seasquirt overgrowing a sponge (yellow organism) and covering ~60% of the seafloor

For example, you can have your students come up with a "first-order" estimate of the "percent cover" of the invasive sea squirt colonies from this live video feed. We will announce the frame grab number (should your class not be able to join us a the start of the transect). We will post the frame grabs on our web site for you to analyze in more detail using the percent cover calculator developed by Mr. Dom Tedeschi working for NURC. This and other easy to use calculators can be found on the Aquanaut Program website: http://ap.nurc.uconn.edu

You may also want to estimate how many other species can be seen in the frame grab images.

You could also have them count colonies for a given period of time.

We will be testing the effectiveness of this live data gathering approach as a teaching tool in the classroom. We urge you to have your class participate in the data gathering activity as you see fit, as a class, individually, in teams etc. For consistency we have developed a data gathering sheet that includes the frame number, first order estimate of the percent cover of the frame occupied by the invader, a calculated percent cover of the frame grab, and any additional species observed. Challenge them to come up with visual means to graph their results.

We have drafted a lesson plan using the format of the NOAA Ocean Exploration program that will provide you some additional guidance.

Practicing on the May Cruise images

In addition to comparing students ability to make first order estimates vs. calculations of percent cover occupied by the sea squirt we have provided 20 frame grabs from the May, 2006 cruise for students to attempt to estimate and calculate the percent cover of the sea squirt. Note, that the quality of these frame grabs is less than will be available in September since the images were acquired with the video signal of the digital still. We will attempt to get as close to the locations of these frame grabs as possible using our ROV navigation system, however, we will not be able to revisit the exact frames. This exercise will give students an opportunity to compare from May to September. Challenge them to come up with novel ways to display and analyze the difference in cover that has occurred over the summer.

Percent coverage images from the May cruise can be found here (ftp://ftp.nurc.uconn.edu/Invasives). On the day of the broadcast (September 27, 2006), images will be captured during the ROV dive and placed in the same directory to enable real-time data analysis.