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Use Archived and Real-time Data to Teach about Estuaries
The Dataset
The NERRS—a network of twenty-seven estuarine reserves—offers teachers the opportunity to educate students about estuaries using near real-time, real-time, and archived data collected through its System-wide Monitoring Program (SWMP). Established in 1995, SWMP measures short-term variability and long-term changes in coastal ecosystems, provides valuable long-term data on water quality and weather at frequent time intervals, and establishes a baseline of environmental conditions throughout the reserve system. Data loggers record a number of water quality parameters while other instruments are used to monitor meteorological conditions and nutrient data in a variety of coastal systems.
View an animated interpretation of the NERRS System-Wide Monitoring Program. These series of animations and visualizations will make it fun and easier for you to understand why scientist monitor estuaries and what parameters they use to measure water quality and weather patterns in an estuary. (Requires Flash Player) Questions about SWMP? Visit: Frequently Asked Questions about SWMP
Relevance
Access to SWMP data and information products can have great benefits for educators throughout the nation. Using a data visualization tool, students can manipulate data on various water quality parameters to see the changes that occur in different estuaries over time. For example, students can graph and interpret trends in dissolved oxygen saturation levels over the course of a year or select the dates and water quality parameters they want to observe, such as comparing dissolved oxygen and water temperature, and work with data from several reserves simultaneously. The analysis of dissolved oxygen facilitates our understanding of fish kills, algal blooms, and fisheries and submerged aquatic vegetation distribution and abundance. Analysis of long-term data collected through SWMP can help build a better understanding of and distinction between natural and anthropogenic influences in estuarine systems. Students can also compare and contrast different estuaries, or look for evidence of water quality degradation caused by agricultural runoff or hurricane impacts. Such an exercise would give students an enormous amount of practice working with graphs, maps, and technology within a meaningful and engaging context. The data visualization tools allow students to explore relationships that they might not have grasped with tables and spread sheet formats. Using the lesson plans and activities developed for the Estuaries 101 Curriculum or the NODE project (Water Quality Module), teachers can help their students explore the physics, biology, chemistry, geography and mystery of estuaries in real and near real-time right from the classroom.
Use in Teaching
Why would teachers be interested in using data from the National Estuarine Research Reserve System’s (NERRS) System-wide Monitoring Program (SWMP)? This vignette provides an example:
It is late September, and the ninth-grade students have settled into their science class routines. The students have started a study of habitats and their biotic and abiotic components. Today there is an undercurrent of excitement in the air—a hurricane has formed and is slowly moving towards the southeastern United States. Although the students live in Tennessee, some have relatives along the coast, and many have visited Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, or the Gulf Coast.
The teacher knows this situation will provide a great opportunity for the students to learn about the power of natural forces and the resilience of natural systems. In the computer lab, after directing the students to find the hurricane’s location and projected track on the NOAA/NWS website, the teacher has the class visit the NERRS SWMP website for students. Having attended a training, the teacher knows the students will be able to access meteorological data for several reserves within the projected track of the hurricane. Groups of students are assigned to a specific reserve and asked to find wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure, and temperature data for the past 24 hours. The students plot the data on a large map, along with the hurricane’s location. Over the next few days, the students track the hurricane’s progress using NOAA and NERRS SWMP websites and comparing conditions at each reserve as the fierce winds pass through. As the patterns begin to take shape, the students pose their own questions and the teacher directs them to the archived data sets that will help them find the answers. After the storm has dissipated, the students will follow a few steps to download SWMP data and graph the storm surge, turbidity levels, and dissolved oxygen patterns before, during, and after the hurricane passes.
In this example, the students are not only learning about and comparing conditions in several real habitats, but they are also engaging in the process of science, to ask questions and use data to inform their answers. Real systems are more complex than ideal textbook examples, and just as the departure of a real observation from what is expected is the basis for scientific discovery, it can provide an engaging context for real learning as students seek explanations.
Accessing the Data
SWMP monitoring data has been available for classroom use, but efforts to train teachers at Reserves have demonstrated that most teachers face barriers which prevent them from using the data website (Parsons, 2006). The barriers to using data in the classroom include a lack of curriculum (which has now been addressed through the creation of the Estuaries 101 Curriculum), lack of adequate support (some of which will be provided by educators from Reserve), and the cumbersome processes of accessing, selecting, and downloading data from the data website. Since the inception of SWMP, the Centralized Data Management Office (CDMO), at the University of South Carolina’s Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine Biology and Coastal Research, has developed and maintained a website to facilitate access to archived SWMP data, serving primarily scientists working in or near NERRS sites. In 2007, the NERRS focused in developing educational materials that use the SWMP data. Together with this effort, in 2008, NERRS education coordinators have been working, with different contractors, to develop an interface that would much more user-friendly and specifically serve the education community. While the work is still in progress, we expect to provide educators with access to this interface at the end of 2008.
In the mean-time, educators can access the SWMP data through the NODE site. See details below.
Education Resources that Use this Dataset
Estuaries 101 Curriculum: The goal of Estuaries 101 is for students and teachers throughout the nation to become more ocean literate through increasing their knowledge of coastal and estuarine science and how estuaries affect their daily lives. Focusing on estuaries, the curriculum modules, target students grades 9-12, and feature hands-on learning, experiments, field work and data explorations. The curriculum consists of four modules, Life Science, Earth Science & Physical Science each using estuaries as the context for developing content knowledge and skills relevant to that domain, and a Chesapeake Bay Module which integrates and deepens the focus on estuarine concepts in a local context.
Chesapeake Bay Explorations – Real Science, Real Data, Real Solutions: This site provide educators with access to the Estuaries 101 - Chesapeake Bay Module. Students (in grades 8-12) investigate the Chesapeake Bay, examine the dynamics of the Bay—how it changes on daily, tidal, and seasonal cycles—and then conduct their own investigations. Exploring maps and accessing real, often current data, students look at the terrain of the Bay and its watershed, investigate changes in salinity, temperature, pH, and other abiotic factors, and consider how these affect and cause changes in the life and habitats of the Bay. The module consists of three activities, which are all Web-based, feature interactive use of data gathered by buoys and other instruments in and around Chesapeake Bay. The data, which are constantly being updated, are presented in the form of maps, graphs, and animations. Dynamically generated worksheets (and answer keys) take full advantage of the authentic, ever-changing nature of the data and the flexibility of the interactive tools, while providing the structure, guidance, and assessment options important to classroom implementation.
NOAA Data Education Project: Data in the Classroom is an online resource for K-12 teachers interested in using real scientific data in their teaching. This Web site is the current home of the NOAA Ocean Data Education (NODE) Project, which is developing curriculum for grades 5-8 designed to help teachers and students use real scientific data to explore dynamic Earth processes and understand the impact of environmental events on a regional or global scale. The challenge posed by this project is to determine what teachers need to help them develop competency in the use of online tools to access real-time data so that they will be able to integrate them into their instructional practices. The project proposes that the best way to tackle this challenge is to present the use of real-time data as part of a systems approach to learning. Three modules have been developed using this approach: El Niño, Sea Level and Water Quality. This last module makes use of a special online tool which provides the interface to the NERRS/SWMP data offered through the CDMO.
About the Data
The mission of SWMP is to measure the short-term variability and long-term changes in both biotic and abiotic parameters at selected water quality monitoring stations in representative protected estuarine ecosystems. This comprehensive program consists of three phased components:
- (1) Abiotic Factors, including: atmospheric conditions, water quality (nutrients, contaminants, etc.) and physical parameters (salinity, tidal range, groundwater, freshwater inflow, bathymetry, etc.);
(2) Biological Monitoring, including: biodiversity, habitat and population characteristics;
(3) Watershed and Land Use Classifications, including: changes in consumptive and non-consumptive uses. SWMP is designed to support state-specific nonpoint source pollution control programs by establishing local networks of continuous water quality monitoring stations in representative protected estuarine ecosystems. SWMP is also designed to collect baseline data that can provide information on the effects of human activities. The program strives to provide information on long-term trends that will assist in reducing uncertainty, information on natural events, and variability that can provide early warning environmental predictions, and ultimately, the ability to predict change and the effectiveness of management decisions.
SWMP consists of automated dataloggers which have been deployed within the reserves and comprise an array of 117 permanent fixed-point stations that generate about 33,600 measurements of estuarine water quality conditions per day. The NERRS Centralized Data Management Office compiles SWMP data, and following quality assurance, disseminates data over the World Wide Web where researchers, coastal managers, and educators readily access the information.
Learn More...
- Check our Frequently Asked Questions About SWMP
- Read about the NERRS Centralized Data Management Office
- Monitoring Tutorial: View an animated interpretation of the NERRS System-Wide Monitoring Program. These series of animations and visualizations will make it fun and easier for you to understand why scientist monitor estuaries and what parameters they use to measure water quality and weather patterns in an estuary. (Requires Flash Player)
Last Updated on: 04-06-2009
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