The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center and COSEE NOW are using ocean drifters to teach college students about the interrelationship of ocean processes and understand how oceanography relies on technology to observe and measure the state of the oceans.
- First, we have students build ocean drifters; since the drifters are equipped with GPS transponders, students can watch the movement of the drifter in real-time over the Internet. As students watch the ocean drifter that they helped decorate and deploy, it spurs interest in additional ocean characteristics that are changing at the same time.
- Second, the students download oceanographic data such as SST, chlorophyll, SSH, wind, and pressure collected from satellites and ocean buoys and display it in Google Earth for the same time and geographic extent as the drifter in the water.
This project enables students to be involved in the collection of oceanographic data that is also of interest to local scientists. These drifters have been deployed by students to help support studies addressing HABs, larval transport, oil spills, power plant effluent, and surface circulation.
Attached file is the bottom of the poster. Click here (PDF, 3.92 MB) to download the top.
Presented by Deidre Sullivan and Alfred Hochstaedter at the 2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT
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