Category Archives: News

racerocks.com Wins Prestigious Educational Award

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Originally published in the Pearson College Newsletter, THE LINK September 17, 2004. Link no.66. 

No one who knows Garry Fletcher — and that includes almost every graduate of Pearson College — can doubt his passion for the environment. No one who has followed the development of the racerocks.com (now.ca) website, connecting the world with the marine protected area just beyond Pearson College, will be surprised that it was singled out in July for an award of excellence from the Commonwealth of Learning. The award recognizes the immense contribution of the website to non-formal distance learning.

“It was an opportunity to share our good fortune with the wider educational community,” Garry has commented on the way he has beamed the rich ecosystems of Race Rocks outward electronically to museums, schools, and all individuals interested in a close look at marine life. From anywhere in the web world it is possible to watch the sealions bask and swim, to see the interaction of abundant species, and to see divers below the surface interacting with requests from children far away. “Through technology we can introduce visitors to marine ecology – without the real visits that would damage a sensitive site.”

The web site racerocks.com was chosen for the following reasons by the jury:

• it is fitting for a variety of clientele needs in non-formal education in the very important area of the environment

• it has adopted a sound learning and instructional design, and

• it uses a variety of media which can be integrated in a flexible manner according to individual learning needs and interests

Garry Fletcher retired from Pearson College this summer after some thirty years of teaching Biology and Environmental Systems. He has not, however, gone far: he lives just down the road, and continues to pass through the college on the way to Race Rocks, the marine area for which he has been instrumental in gaining protected status, and for whose website he has just been highly honoured.

The presentation was made by Sir John Daniel, President of COL, to Garry Fletcher of Pearson College in Dunedin, New Zealand at the annual awards ceremony to announce the 2004 recipients of the Excellence in Distance Education Awards (EDEA).

http://web.archive.org/web/20041221184308/http://peernet.lbpc.ca/thelink/091704/06racerck.html

Eileen Dombrowski
September 17, 2004. Link no.66

Commonwealth Of Learning Announces 2004 Award winners.

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EXCELLENCE IN DISTANCE EDUCATION AWARDS

colawardGarry Fletcher receives an award from Sir John Daniel * for the website “racerocks.com” on behalf of Lester B. Pearson College. A Gala Awards banquet was held  to announce the 2004 recipients of the Excellence in Distance Education Awards (EDEA).

 

*(Sir John Daniel – President of the Commonwealth of Learning) Further information: http://www.col.org/edea

EDEA3_materials_webThe third EDEA were conferred at the third Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in Dunedin New Zealand, 6 JULY 2004: The photo shows- left to right: Garry Fletcher, for Category B. Dr. Thomas Webster (U. of Papua New Guinea) and Chris Baker (the Open University, Gt Britain) for category A, and Prof Mohan Menon ( Chair of Selection Committee)

 

diploma goldstrgaz grouptable
The Diploma for the Excellence in Distance Education Award Coverage of COL Award in Goldstream Gazette Race Rocks as an example of
Distance Education and
Environmental Stewardship

COL

 

FROM THE “2004 CITATIONS”

COL award for excellence in distance education materials under category B: multimedia materials supporting non-formal education is awarded to Lester B. Pearson College, Victoria, Canada for its on-line materials “Racerocks.com”. We recommend this multi-media material for the award because:

it is fitting for a variety of clientele needs in non-formal education in the very important area of the environment
it has adopted a sound learning and instructional design, and
it uses a variety of media which can be integrated in a flexible manner according to individual learning needs and interests

An attractive, well-laid out site with a plethora of resources including quality content and activities providing a virtual tour of the ecosystem without actually being there. The website provides a variety of activities and resources for students and teachers at different levels, especially those in middle and high schools. The site has been designed to provide images to those who have slow computer and/or network connections thereby increasing the accessibility to the site. It enables learners to interact with a sensitive environmental area without affecting it. The nature of materials and their presentation is such that learners may either be guided to work through the site in a systematic or structured manner or they can proceed randomly, yet still learn something. It includes both current and archived material. Students are able to leave behind information for others to use and can take ownership of their learning. The topic covered by the site is and will continue to be of interest to a wide variety of people who want to learn about aquatic life and the environment.

Mr. President I ask you to confer the excellence in distance education materials award on the Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, British Columbia, Canada. Mr. Garry Fletcher will accept the award on behalf of the College.
Speaker: Dr. Mohan Menon
> Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
> Suite 600 – 1285 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6H 3X8 CANADA
> COL is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.

Usando Internet para Protección Ecológica

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 Usando internet para protección ecológica
m.m.burkle@sussex.ac.uk

Por MARTHA BURKLE
GRUPO REFORMA


El domingo de la semana pasada tuve la suerte de visitar un interesante proyecto en el que la web es utilizada para crear una dinámica experiencia educativa en estudiantes de preparatoria de todas las regiones del globo. El proyecto “Race Rocks” (www.racerocks.ca/) toma su nombre de una isla ubicada en el punto geográfico más al sur de Canadá. La isla tiene una historia de más de un siglo, cuando en 1860 las fuerzas británicas vieron la necesidad de establecer un faro náutico para poder orientar sus navíos en una zona marítima en la que las corrientes de agua y los vientos cambian de manera vertiginosa.

En 1974, el Colegio Pearson fue abierto en la región de Victoria, Columbia Británica, como parte de un proyecto internacional llamado “United World Colleges” -Preparatorias Unidas del Mundo – (www.uwc.org/uwchome.html).

Fundado en 1962 con el soporte de la ONU, la misión del proyecto internacional es formar a jóvenes entre 16 y 19 años de edad, procedentes de todas las regiones del mundo, en los valores de responsabilidad, vida comunitaria, conciencia ecológica y en la promoción de los ideales de justicia, paz, comprensión y cooperación internacional. A nivel mundial existen solamente 10 colegios como este (dos en norteamérica, uno en sudamérica, tres en Europa, uno en Africa y tres más en Asia), y año con año, estudiantes de preparatoria buscan ser seleccionados entre los 100 mejores (cada colegio admite solamente a cien estudiantes por año), en el aspecto académico y de compromiso con la comunidad.

El proyecto de investigación de ‘racerocks.com’ nace prácticamente con la fundación del colegio de Pearson, al sur de Canadá. Diseñado para proveer contenidos y experiencias de investigación en los diversos programas educativos dentro del colegio, los profesores de Pearson College alimentan la página web con el propósito de motivar en sus estudiantes el interés por la vida marina en la isla.

Utilizando una interesante combinación entre tecnología de punta y cuadernos de notas, los creadores del proyecto (con el patrocinio de Apple y Sony) instalaron cámaras digitales en diversos puntos de la isla para la transmisión en vivo, 24 horas al día, de la actividad marina en la zona. Dos cámaras registran la ecología marina en las costas de la isla, una cámara transmite vida acuática en las profundidades del océano, y una más es utilizada para eventos especiales en vivo. Seguramente usted, querido/a lector, compartirá conmigo cierta fascinación al conocer este único lugar, si visita la web que le permitirá escuchar en vivo los diversos sonidos producidos por focas, leones marinos, elefantes marinos, gaviotas y demás habitantes de la región.

A pesar de ser una red tecnológica relativamente pequeña, la tecnología involucrada en el proyecto de Racerocks.com es bastante sofisticada. Prácticamente todos los aparatos que configuran la red pueden ser adquiridos en el mercado, pero lo que los hace únicos es la original visión que los integró. Ambos, el colegio y la isla, comparten una red local. La infraestructura de la red es provista de velocidad por switches y routers que utilizan módems rápidos para proveer video y audio. Como la isla en sí está ubicada a varios kilómetros de la costa del colegio, era importante que la red tuviera alta capacidad y lograr esto fue difícil. Al inicio del proyecto, tres eran las opciones más viables: el uso de una conexión vía satélite, la transmisión inalámbrica, o la fibra óptica marina.

El proceso de toma de decisión respecto a cual seria la tecnología más propia, tuvo que tomar en cuenta factores económicos y de conservación del medio ambiente. El uso del satélite apareció como una vía muy costosa y poco probable; por su parte, utilizar fibra óptica submarina, era costoso también y además presentaba algunos problemas técnicos y otros involucrados con la protección ecológica del área. Finalmente, la opción del uso de microondas apareció como la más viable.

Radios modelo “Tsunami” y equipos de construcción de la compañía de telecomunicaciones “Glen Tel” fueron adquiridos e instalados en la parte superior del faro náutico en la isla.

Esta mañana, y mientras escribo esta columna, Racerocks.com está transmitiendo en vivo imágenes submarinas desde la isla a un congreso que se lleva a cabo simultáneamente en California. Probablemente lo más interesante de estas imágenes es el hecho de que son los mismos estudiantes, chicos y chicas en edad adolescente, quienes se encuentran ahí, haciendo la transmisión debajo del agua. Los y las estudiantes involucrados en el proyecto, registran eficientemente los cambios ecológicos en la isla, y comparan sus datos con los obtenidos por previas generaciones en el siglo XIX y cuidan de los equipos electrónicos.

México tiene a dos de sus mejores estudiantes de preparatoria en el Colegio de Pearson. Fue emocionante platicar con ellos y ver su compromiso de trabajo y dedicación.

La autora es doctoranda en Políticas de Ciencia y Tecnología en la Universidad de Sussex, Inglaterra

Reprinted with permission of the author.

racerocks.com Education and Research in Real Time

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This article by Garry Fletcher with contributions by Pearson College students Damien Guihen and Jean-Olivier Dalphond was published in the Fall, 2001 issue of the journal Education Canada . It appears in the edition on Education and Technology. Vol. 41, No 3 . It is reproduced here with permission of the editor, Paula Dunning.

 

Journal Subscriptions: publications (use the at sign)cea-ace.ca

Education Canada is published quarterly by the CEA
Copyright Canadian Education Association 2001, ISSN 0013-1253

Education Canada
317 Adelaide Street W. Suite 3000 Toronto
Ontario. M5V 1P9

visit the website of Education Canada at: http://www.cea-ace.ca

The Race Rocks Activity Group at Race Rocks with Paul Kennedy of CBC Ideas

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Written by the students of the Race Rocks Activity:

Paul Kennedy, the host of the CBC evening program “Ideas” OCT 6, 2001: Paul Kennedy of the CBC Radio program “IDEAS” went with us to Race Rocks on the afternoon of October 6. He was interested in observing one of our live webcasts from underwater. He is in the process of preparing a series on Canada’s Oceans in December of 2001, and has been intrigued with the potentials for distance education that is afforded by the technology we have developed here for racerocks.com.This series is being rebroadcast in February and March 2002. Race Rocks Segment : CBC radio Feb 22 9:00 P.M.

RACE ROCKS MPA FEATURED ON the CBC IDEAS PROGRAM

RACE ROCKS MPA FEATURED ON the CBC IDEAS PROGRAM

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paulonOn Saturday May 26, 2001, we hosted at Race Rocks Paul Kennedy, the host of the CBC program “Ideas” (9:00 PM nightly Mon-Fri. ) .

Paul was on the West Coast that week preparing a special series on Canada’s oceans and marine issues. See Paul’s OCEAN JOURNAL entry for May 26 for an account of his trip to Race Rocks.

OCEANS EXPLORATIONS: LEARNING FROM OUR OCEANS is a project which will result in eight hours of programming on IDEAS in December 2001. Paul will spend much of the next seven months on each of Canada’s three ocean coasts. He’ll be on board fishing dorys, Haida canoes, off-shore oil rigs, and snowmobiles crossing Arctic ice. By talking with Canadians who live and work on the sea, he’ll begin to learn about many of the things that the oceans can teach us.threeandrr

Paul was accompanied by Garry Fletcher and Angus Matthews of Lester B. Pearson College, and Mark Pakenham, of Ocean’s and Fisheries It was a great day to be on Race Rocks as we were in there in the middle of the Swift Sure Sailboat Race, so the vessels kept making close passes through the islands of Race Rocks MPA . Photos by Angus Matthews.

Paul returned in the Fall of 2001 to do a webcast with the students.

gfpaul-1

Macs at Work-By David Ferris– in MACWORLD

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QuickTime Conservation

Macs at Work

By David Ferris

Three cameras film live, continuous shots in QuickTime of lolling sea lions, dive-bombing pigeon guillemots, and spectacular sunsets. Web visitors can even control Camera One to make it zoom in on sights.

Welcome to Race Rocks, Garry Fletcher says. Use the Web to visit the windswept islands off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Watch and listen.

Then stay away.

It took Fletcher 20 years to persuade the Canadian government to protect Race Rocks, a group of small islands that jut from the north shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The islands, Canada’s southernmost point, teem with sea lions, seabirds, and anemones.

Fletcher, a biology instructor at Lester B. Pearson College in Victoria, British Columbia, established racerocks.com last year. His idea: if he brought Race Rocks to the masses via streaming media, maybe the masses wouldn’t come by, spooking seals and seagulls and banging boat anchors on the reefs.

Three cameras film live, continuous shots in QuickTime of lolling sea lions, dive-bombing pigeon guillemots, and spectacular sunsets. Web visitors can even control Camera One to make it zoom in on sights.

Feeds from each of the stationary cameras go to an iMac running Sorenson Broadcaster software. One Power Mac G4 streams archived video, and another is used to edit footage in iMovie and Sorenson. Meanwhile, Camera One’s remote features run on a Mac 7300.

Racerocks.com has a mobile Webcasting unit: a Sony digital video camera connected via FireWire to a PowerBook G3 equipped with an AirPort card. Footage can be shot anywhere in the islands and surrounding waters, transmitted to an AirPort Base Station on the biggest island, and boosted with an external antenna.

Fletcher and his students even wired the island for sound by sticking a stan- dard Mac desktop microphone out of a window. “We’ve put it in a plastic bag,” Fletcher says. “It’s amazing how it picks up the seal sounds and the gull sounds.”

Fletcher’s students use this mobile filming system during the summer months to create live Webcasts of tide pools and other ecosystems. And divers have used the same camera — connected by cable to a support boat — to capture images of sea lions cavort-ing in the deep.

A thousand visitors go to racerocks.com each week for the sights and sounds. But they’re lucky Fletcher’s setup doesn’t deliver one of the sensations of Race Rocks: the smell. “It can be fairly ripe at times, especially when the sea lions pile up next to the docks,” says Fletcher.

Great Race Rock Added to Ecological Reserve

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The Esquimalt-Metchosin MLA Moe Sihota went out to the Ecological Reserve with Garry  and Angus to declare the island part of Great Race Rock an addition to the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.  This 1.5 ha land had been excluded from the ER in 1980, and is now part of the Reserve. A small parcel of land around the tower, foghorn and solar panels  is still leased by the Coastguard.

ertransfer1

Witnessing the Wonders of the Race Rock Ecosystem

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Witnessing the Wonders of the Race Rock Eco-system … Only a Click Away!
Magazine article By Simon, Jeremy
Teach , November/December 2000

Just into range of the first camera, a large elephant seal crawls across the rock towards a group of smaller female seals near the top of the middle island at Race Rocks. Unbeknownst to the seal, he’s being watched not only by the student operating the camera but by hundreds of students from across British Columbia, and possibly more people from around the world via the Internet.

“The Racerocks.com Project is a unique project organized and run by Pearson College in Victoria, British Columbia,” said Garry Fletcher, educational director of racerocks.com. “Our project uses the latest technology to full advantage to create a dynamic, educational web experience of an extraordinary marine ecosystem at Race Rocks, Canada’s most southerly point in the Pacific,”

Since 1980, Race Rocks has been an ecological reserve and is internationally recognized as a Marine Protected Area. Located in the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Vancouver Island and Washington State, the small rocky outcrops of Rock Rocks is home to a diversity of marine and wild life such as seals, otters, sea lions, cormorants, gulls, and sea urchins. To learn about and better understand the ecology of the area, students from Pearson College use the latest technology as part of their studies.

One of ten United World Colleges, Pearson College has over 200 students from around the world enrolled in the two year International Baccalaureate program. As a faculty member of Environmental Systems and Biology, Garry Fletcher and his students are responsible for creating and maintaining the content of the web site.

The project is supported by various partners including The LGS Group, an IT consulting firm that provides project management and web design services. Another project partner is Telus, a leading telecommunications company, which has contributed the equipment, bandwidth and expertise to assure high-speed delivery of the web content. Several alumni of the college have assisted with the networking and Database work, and the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, has committed expertise and significant funding to the project. B.C. Parks and the Millennium Partnership Fund are also key partners.

Apple’s affiliation to the racerocks.com project has been in providing some equipment and mostly technical support. The project uses Apple technology extensively and runs an Apple PowerMac G4 500 mgHz with Mac OS X Server as one of its web servers. Apple Canada has recently become a partner in the program providing a G3 Powerbook 500 mghz for the wireless webcasts from the intertidal and subtidal areas. A host of PC and Apple PowerMac computers are also used for capture of live video feeds being broadcast from the islands. Currently a series of environmental sensors are being installed, above and below water. Data from these will soon be accessible through an Oracle database. Video and Audio streaming is broadcast 24 hours daily using QuickTime Streaming Server software and generated by Sorenson Broadcaster software running on Macintosh Imacs.

Operated by students, as many as seven digital cameras and various data sensors, both above and under water, record what is occurring at Race Rocks and then broadcast the feeds during live video and audio events scheduled over a number of days.

Recently, the project has begun to use Apple’s wireless Airport technology, which enables students to roam the island with an Apple PowerBook G3 linked to the underwater or on shore cameras. The signal is linked to the project’s Local Area Network on the island, which is connected to the College by a compressed, microwave radio link, being transmitted on top of the Race Rocks lighthouse tower. At the College, the signal is decompressed and sent out over the internet.

“A key goal of the project is to encourage teachers to create internet-based curriculum, which will enable their students to have a fully engaging experience learning about the unique ecology of Race Rocks,” said Fletcher. ” As an example, we just recently supported a number of schools across B.C. to connect to our web site during one of our many scheduled live video streaming events. A team of students helped in providing two weeks of programming from above and below the water to schools via the internet. We hope to encourage other schools to take on similar projects and “Adopt a Sensitive Ecosystem” so that they can also share ecological information. These schools’ students were able to talk directly to our College’s underwater student divers and ask questions about what they were seeing being broadcast live via the web site.”

As the racerocks.com project continues to broaden its use of its technology, more creative and innovative programs will be planned to help the College’s students study the diversity of the Race Rock outcrops and share their findings with other students in Canada and around the world.

To check out how the large elephant seal is doing and learn more about Race Rocks, you can visit the web site at www.racerocks.com.

MPA Update: Race Rocks to Become Canada’s First Official MPA

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News

MPA Update: Race Rocks to Become Canada’s First Official MPA

Submitted by MPA News staff on 15 October 2000.
MPA News Volume/Issue:
October 2000 (2:4)

On September 14, Canada’s minister of fisheries and oceans endorsed a plan that will make the waters surrounding Race Rocks, a small nine-islet archipelago, the first official marine protected area in Canada. Commercial fishing and most sport fishing will be off-limits in the MPA, which will measure a little less than one square mile, or 2.6 sq. km, in area. Race Rocks is located on the southernmost end of the nation’s Pacific coast (MPA News 1:8).

Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) designated Race Rocks in 1998 as one of several “pilot MPAs”, part of a strategy to determine whether those areas should be formally designated as MPAs and how they could best be managed (MPA News 1:1).

“Learning by Doing,” Canada Adds Pilot MPAs and Looks Long-Term to Zone National Waters

Submitted by MPA News staff on 15 September 1999.
MPA News Volume/Issue:
Premier issue (1:1)

Building an ambitious national MPA program from the ground up, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has established six “pilot MPAs” in the past year and has plans for more soon. With an adaptive approach that emphasizes scientific research and the testing of protection strategies, DFO seeks to “learn by doing”: through its pilots, it will determine whether the areas should be formally designated as MPAs and how they can best be managed, say officials.

DFO assumed responsibility for coordinating the nation’s marine protected area programs in 1997 with the launch of Canada’s Oceans Act, and it has moved quickly since then to set aside coastal and deepwater sites. Four pilot MPAs now exist on the West Coast (Race Rocks, Gabriola Passage, Endeavor Hot Vents, and Bowie Seamount) and two off the Maritimes on the East Coast (Basin Head and Sable Gully). Of these six, Basin Head is the newest, announced in June. DFO officials in Newfoundland, Quebec, and Canada’s Arctic are expected to announce pilot MPAs in their respective areas in the coming year or two. Draft management plans for the existing pilot MPAs could be ready by early next year.