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  • Templeton Lecture Series Set for 2003
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    JASON to Explore Channel Isles

    UCSB research biologist Jenn Caselle, right, and JASON Project student host Jeff Pan inspect an intertidal transect.
    When Robert Ballard's Jason Project in marine education starts its multimedia exploration of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands on Jan. 27, it will, in part, be due to behind-the-scenes assistance from more than a score of UCSB faculty, staff, and graduate students.
    The ambitious effort, called "JASON XIV: From Shore to Sea," will involve K-12 students from across the nation in real-time audio-video communications with researchers on land and under the Channel. Gathered in groups at satellite-linked locations, such as the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, the students watch scientists and resource specialists run experiments, observe wildlife, and go about their tasks.
    During the project, which runs until Feb. 7, they will be able to ask questions of the researchers or even have a hand in guiding experiments, such as the sensor-packed drone aircraft that NASA plans to launch from campus to fly over part of Anacapa Island.
    At least two parts of the JASON XIV curriculum will involve UCSB faculty, staff, and students in prerecorded, on-camera adventures. Tanya Atwater, professor of geological sciences, and a department graduate student, Nate Onderdonk, are featured in the geology and oceanography segment. They explain to one of the host students how the geologic plate with the island chain and the local section of mainland has rotated 90 degrees, shaping many of the area's unique aspects.
    In another segment that sketches interconnected ecosystems, research biologists Jenn Caselle and Clara Svedlund conduct intertidal field analyses. Caselle is science coordinator and Svedlund a research technician for the Marine Science Institute's Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans program.
    UCSB is also one of the JASON XIV sponsors.
    Separate from the project, JASON founder and chief scientist Robert Ballard, a UCSB alumnus, will give a public address on Jan. 31 at 6 p.m. at the Arlington Theatre.