THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 6, 1995 TAG: 9502040020
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THE GATEWAY
EXPLORING THE COMPUTER WORLD
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
THERE WON'T BE any way to evoke the aroma of tidal flats or the scratch of shore grass on flesh. But the cries of the osprey and the whistle of wind over open water should one day be heard, and the play of light on the beach will surely be seen. Images and information on the Chesapeake Bay will begin to pour electronically through the channels of the Internet by the end of the year. Those with Internet access - students, teachers, home users, net surfers - will become instant environmental experts, privy to the kind of information usually available only to marine scientists.
The reason is BAYLINK, a World Wide Web offering that will be developed by Norfolk-area public broadcasting affiliate WHRO in partnership with the College of William and Mary, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Old Dominion University's Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography and the Virginia Marine Science Museum.
BAYLINK is one of five interactive multimedia projects nationwide chosen for funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CBP), from a pool of 30 proposals.
WHRO will use its $150,000 CBP grant to develop a detailed environmental profile of the Bay and the tributaries that feed the Bay watershed.
The money has already been appropriated and banked, and so won't be affected by any federal or state cuts to the public broadcasting budgets.
``Really what we're doing is taking all the data, pictures and running video clips that we can get our hands on and putting them in one location in one machine and making it available to anyone in the world,'' said Brian Callahan, director of interactive technology for the Hampton Roads Educational Telecommunications Association, WHRO's corporate parent.
``You will be able to grab information just by pointing and clicking.''
Eventually, BAYLINKers should be able to track whether plants are flourishing or withering, how birds are faring, whether Bay water is becoming cleaner or dirtier and how much human-tossed trash is fouling the shoreline.
One of the BAYLINK partners is the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, based at the marine science institute in Gloucester. Reserve staff and graduate students will be conducting field studies at various research sites around the Bay, the results of which will be funneled directly to BAYLINK. ``The data has all the warts real data has,'' said Maurice P. Lynch, the reserve manager of Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. ``But they are illustrative of basic principles. This is the way to go for scientists to get real information in the hands of teachers and students.''
BAYLINK, say proponents, is a preview of what's coming in education: truly interactive, real-time computerized exchange between students, teachers and subjects. In particular, teachers will be changing their roles from the``sage on the stage'' to that of ``guide on the side.''
But traditional subjects will also take on a life and vitality not possible between the pages of a textbook. BAYLINK browsers will see, hear and begin to understand the daily vitality of a living ecosystem, its flaws, its failures, its beauty.
``It's a lot more fun that reading `salinity is affected by rainfall,' '' Lynch said. ``The potential for this is great.'' MEMO: If you have any ideas or comments for The Gateway, contact Tom Boyer
at boyer(AT)infinet or call 446-2362.
In Hampton Roads, computer users can explore the Internet through the
Pilot Online. The best of the Gateway columns are available on the
Computer Page of the Pilot Online. See page A2 for details.
KEYWORDS: INTERNET INFORMATION SUPER HIGHWAY by CNB