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.