VALUE ADDED: USG Serves Georgia
April 2008
Ossabaw Island: Cameras Soon to Provide Window for Classrooms
Ossabaw Island on the Georgia coast just south of Savannah is an undeveloped paradise inhabited by wild animals and inaccessible to the general public.
Several organizations including the Georgia
Research Alliance, which has contributed
$100,000 are working to put Ossabaw's
natural resources
to work without
disturbing this
patch of land that
time forgot. This is
an ambitious effort
that centers on the
use of broadband
technology to
bring the barrier
prediction, are available at
island's unique
www.georgiaweather.net. The
environment into
next phase of the project will
focus in classrooms
measure water quality at a
and households
series of wells, Bitler said, and
across the nation. Skidaway Institute of Oceanography Professor Emeritus that element eventually will be
The plan is to put sensors and cameras at key
Herb Windom (right) discusses the Ossabaw sensor expanded to track water depth,
network with reporters while Ossabaw Island Manager salinity and other variables.
Jim Bitler (left) assists.
After that? The island's
locations around
alligator, turtle and bird popu-
Ossabaw to create a network that would
lations are obvious targets for cameras. Windom
churn out real-time information continuously, said 12 or so cameras will be placed on slender
according to Herbert L Windom, professor
poles, much like telephone poles, making them
emeritus at the Skidaway Institute of Oceano-
unobtrusive yet functional.
graphy and one of the originators of the concept. "We need to keep it as natural as possible," he
Part of the initiative is in place.
said.
A weather station, funded by Georgia Power, has been up and running for some time, said Jim Bitler, on-island coordinator for the Ossabaw Island Foundation. The data it produces, which include current conditions, a rainfall calculator and temperature and dewpoint
Bitler added that whatever system is installed must operate under the mandate established in 1978 when the state bought the island from the two families who owned it: Ossabaw is to be
See "OSSABAW," p. 2...
VALUE ADDED USG Serves Georgia
Ossabaw Island Going Online
Continued from p. 1 ...
used solely for study, research and education, with minimal impact on its resources.
Bitler one of the few full-time
residents of the island, which is
managed by the state and accessible
only by boat said installing the
poles and sensors at sea-turtle
nesting sites along the beach would
enable scientists and students
to monitor the nesting process,
as well as possibly monitor nest
depredation. Meanwhile, a camera
trained on an alligator nest would
provide a good look at daily life in
that environment.
The process of placing the sensors One of thousands of reptilian inhabitants of Ossabaw Island whose daily ac-
is expected to take place over the tivities will be observed and studied with the help of inobtrusive cameras and
next several months.
sensors.
Once they are installed and the information is made available, the impact will be broad and immediate, said Paul Pressly, director of the Ossabaw Island Education Alliance, a partnership in which the Board of Regents is the
"We want the information coming from the sensors, video cameras and other monitors to go into every classroom in the state of Georgia," he said. "We have the opportunity of redefining how coastal ecology is taught in this state." Q
driving force.