The dream to turn Ossabaw Island into a living laboratory accessible to anyone with a computer is a step closer to reality. Skidaway Institute of Oceanography and the Ossabaw Island Foundation have received $200,000 in grants from the Georgia Power Corporation and the Georgia Research Alliance to build a network of sensors on the remote coastal Georgia barrier island. The goal is to allow educators, students and scientists to study the island and monitor changes in the environment from off-island locations.

“Based on a number of workshops with state scientists and other stakeholders, we initiated the idea to establish an observing system on the island so people could have access to the island, not just by going over by boat, but also remotely through sensors and computer technology,” said Herb Windom, a Skidaway Institute scientist and one of the originators of the plan.

Other partners in the project include the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which manages the island; the Ossabaw Island Foundation, which is responsible for developing educational and cultural programs; and the Alliance for Coastal Technology (ACT), a consortium of research laboratories, including Skidway Institute, whose goal is to promote the development of remote sensor technology.

Ossabaw is an undeveloped barrier island several miles south of Savannah. In 1978, the West family who owned the island sold it to the state of Georgia with the understanding it would never be developed, and would be used for education and research. It was established as Georgia’s first heritage trust.

Through grants from Georgia Power, the Ossabaw Foundation has installed a power grid and a broadband wireless communication system essential for operating a sensor network. ACT established monitoring wells on the island to monitor ground water, and last August, also with aid from Georgia Power, a weather station was set up. Real-time weather conditions from this system can be monitored on-line at www.georgiaweather.net.

The next phase will include three sensor systems to monitor water quality -- on the coast, in a creek and in a pond. Additional sensors will also be deployed in wells to monitor the groundwater levels, temperature and salinity. Within the next year, more and different sensors will be added to the network, including video cameras on the beach and at other locations on the island.

“Ossabaw is one of the very few islands protected from development due to its status as a heritage trust,” said Windom. “So here is a place for people to look at a barrier island and see how it responds to a variety of things, like seasonal changes in climate, storm events, droughts or global climate change.”

Windom envisions educators, students and researchers continuing to visit the island as they do now. “You can bring in an education group and they can study the island as it is,” he said. “Then they can follow it when they return to their classroom.”

According to Paul Pressly, director of the Ossabaw Island Foundation’s education programs, the goal of the project is two-fold. “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. “Secondly, we want researchers to be able to place sensors that serve their research purposes on the island, whether monitoring water quality, tarpon activity in the creeks or other forms of animal life. Through our network of sensors and cameras, we have the opportunity of redefining how coastal ecology is taught in this state.”

Armstrong Atlantic State University professor Ashraf Saad has already begun such a program. With a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Saad has developed OssaBest, a project to increase the preparation and participation of students entering information technology careers. OssaBest will prepare 90 teachers and 120 students from the Savannah-Chatham County School System over the course of the three-year project. Participants will learn how to use advanced information technologies for the exploration of Ossabaw Island, being able to observe natural phenomena via real-time transmission of video and data from the sensor network.

“When the National Science Foundation, Georgia Power and the Georgia Research Alliance made grants this fall to create an observatory on Ossabaw Island, we knew we had crossed a magical threshold,” said Pressly. “We now have the resources to put together a path-breaking program for research and education that respects the island’s undisturbed nature.”

The barrier island observatory will be called the Georgia Power Observatory, in recognition of Georgia Power’s long-standing support for projects on the island.

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Note: The Skidaway Institute of Oceanography is an autonomous research unit of the University System of Georgia located on Skidaway Island in Savannah, Ga. The mission of the Institute is to provide the State of Georgia with a nationally and internationally recognized center of excellence in marine science through research and education.