Category Archives: Technology

A UVic study explores renewable energy options at Canada’s newest Marine Protected Area

Posted on by

Going with the flow

A UVic study explores renewable energy options at Canada’s newest Marine Protected Area

by Diane Haughlandracerocks

niet

Taco Niet

The essence of Race Rocks is its tides. Tides that feed biodiversity. Tides that have brought ships to their knees upon its rocky shores. And tides that may bring it to the forefront of renewable energy technology.
For his recently completed master’s thesis, UVic mechanical engineering graduate student Taco Niet has created a model that shows tidal power to be the most realistic source of renewable energy for Race Rocks.
A collection of nine tiny islets with a big reputation, Race Rocks is situated 17 km southwest of Victoria at the eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Its reefs and strong tidal currents — up to seven knots — support an exceptional diversity of marine life, including invertebrates, fish, seabirds and marine mammals. In 2000 it became Canada’s first Marine Protected Area created under the federal Oceans Act.
Race Rocks hosts a lighthouse, occasional researchers and educators, and two full-time guardians employed by Lester B. Pearson College. The college has also installed a local area network that allows Internet video coverage around the clock, accessible at www.racerocks.com.
While the light tower and foghorn are powered by solar panels, a diesel generator supplies the guardians with the energy required to live full-time at Race Rocks, including energy-costly water desalination. Several times a year, diesel fuel is transported to the island by boat and pumped into storage tanks, an enterprise with plenty of potential environmental hazard.
Garry Fletcher, educational director at Pearson College, initiated the renewable energy project through contact with UVic’s institute for integrated energy systems (IESVic). Institute director Dr. Ged McLean, Niet, and two other students soon began preliminary energy modeling.
Niet later took on the project as a master’s thesis. He modelled the hourly energy flows for an entire year, using information collected by electronic monitors that recorded energy use, wind speed, sun exposure and tidal flow. McLean stresses the importance of Niet’s model.
“It’s the only one we know of that tracks energy production and demand on an hourly basis. Most models use a larger time scale, glossing over the amount of time when energy production is zero.” McLean adds, “Taco also made his system entirely self-contained — there are no traditional back-up systems in the model, making it especially relevant to small, isolated communities.”
In the end, gleaming solar panels and spinning wind turbines were not the best choice; it was the eggbeater-like tidal turbines that came out tops. Niet says it’s not surprising that tidal power emerged ahead of solar and wind.
“Tides arrive every six hours, every day, year-round,” he points out. “They’re reliable.” Tidal ebb and flow result in the most favourable balance between energy production and demand, requiring less energy storage than either of the alternatives.
“We see the Race Rocks model as an alternative energy parable,” Niet muses. “It provides a realistic picture of what we can — and can’t — do with renewable energy.” Seasonal variation in many renewable energy sources requires large investments in energy storage. “Blanketing every inch of an area with solar panels is not exactly environmentally friendly,” Niet explains, “not to mention the environmental and economic costs of making the panels.”
While Niet’s model currently exists only on paper, the Race Rocks energy parable could soon become a reality. Niet is searching for an industrial partner to take the next step. “We need to conduct an environmental assessment,” Niet says, “and if the results are favourable, we’ll require funding to implement the turbines”.
Meanwhile, Niet, McLean, and McLean’s new students forge ahead. Their next project? “North America is the next, logical self-contained unit to model,” enthuse Niet and McLean. “Our goal is to understand what a realistic future looks like,” McLean explains, “and how sustainable energy technology fits in that world.”
Funding for Niet’s work was provided by McLean’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council operating grant.

 

Diane Haughland is a participant in the SPARK program (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge), funded by UVic, NSERC and SSHRC.

From The Ring,  Feb 21, 2002

Webcasting for QuickTime Live

Posted on by

On February 14 , 2002, we did a live webcast for Keith Mitchell of ALI ( Apple learning Interchange) in his presentation at QuickTime Live in Hollywood California. This was the first time we tried out the new webcasting software “LiveChannel” from our new partners Channel Storm.

 

Webcast crew

(L to R back) Garry,Damien, Nigel (L to R front) Kiprop, Ian(visitor), Monica, Olend, Chris . Thanks to Angus Matthews for the photos– Monica claims full responsibility for the commentary on this page!! Also see this write-up which appeared in the Pearson College Newsletter

The Race Rocks group setting up before the big day! Monica and Nigel peer intently into the eye of one of the cameras and Garry tests out the underwater cam before the dive, looking a bit like Roger Rabbit in the process.

Report on Pearson College and Race Rocks Activities Dec 2002

Posted on by

December 16  Report
Race Rocks Marine Biology Project
By Garry Fletcher
Faculty Member, Lester B. Pearson College
Ecological reserve Warden for Race Rocks.
Education Director, racerocks.com

This report outlines the activities of the Race Rocks Marine Biology Program at Lester Pearson College from December 15, 2001 to December 15, 2002. During this second year of the Richard Ivey Foundation’s three-year commitment to this project, there has been  on-going advancement in our project objectives. Additional funding has been forthcoming this year from the World  Wildlife Fund,  the Georgia Strait Alliance, a private dive charter group and a member of our Race Rocks Advisory Board.  The provincial government has completed a long term lease agreement with us and is assisting us to upgrade the sewage system to a composting system and with repairs to buildings at the islands.
Project Objectives Report
Objective 1: To provide appropriate staffing and a pool of skilled volunteers who are dedicated to monitoring the local marine environment.
    I have continued to devote part of my teaching schedule to educational work involving Race Rocks. I am in constant communication with Mike and Carol Slater, the eco- guardians at Race Rocks as they provide assistance in monitoring the cameras and computers and alert us to any issues involving enforcement of the guidelines of the reserve.
    A further improvement to our Daily Log kept by Mike and Carol was developed this year. We were fortunate to have the volunteer services of Alec Matthews of the software design company WhiteAtom Design, work with us in the development of a database into which the daily observations of Race Rocks are entered. This now runs on a server on the island, with the added advantage being that in the database form, we are able to do reports on selected fields of the database. This makes our reporting to BC Parks and Fisheries more efficient, and allows us to link the content of the database to the resources on the web pages.

    Chris Blondeau, our seafront manager, has been active with the college divers, teaching them underwater camera skills and adding to the underwater video library for the college.  We have made a video of one of the incidents that Chris was involved with while assisting with the ongoing public education role which we conduct with the local community in the monitoring and enforcement of infractions in the reserve. http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidfishing.htm
    My two colleagues in the biology and environmental systems department Catrin Brown and Laura Verhegge have incorporated a number of the resources of the website and Race Rocks into their teaching program. We were able to webcast live two of their low-tide field labs last spring. A video was added to the education section of the archives that shows Laura’s first year environmental System classes doing their final exam at Race Rocks. http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/videxam2002a.htm
    The popularity among the students of the “new media” approach in education has led to an increase in demand for facilities to do video editing on campus. Examples of producing video on-line provided by the racerocks.com experience, led one of the students in the racerocks.com activity to produce video clips of our annual “One World Show .
I gave this same student a video camera when he went home to Kenya this summer. He was able to take his skills learned in the webcasting experience from racerocks.com activity and produce several excellent videos of the life of the children in rural Kenya. In the new year, the students of the activity  will be live webcasting a bi-weekly program presenting events of the week at Pearson College.
    The college has been able to set up a new computer media room for students to work on other video editing projects.  Adding this option for our students has been a valuable spin off of the racerocks.com program. Sylvia Roach, another science faculty member is supervising the students involved with this option.  We were also fortunate to be able to hire Scott Nichol this year. He is a software and web specialist who also helps us in sorting out some of the technical problems with the computers at Race Rocks.

Objective 2. To supplement environmental monitoring through 24 hr video monitoring through the racerocks.com website.  Our cameras and computers set up in the Millennium project have served us well in providing continual live access to the islands resources through live streaming video.
    In January of 2002, we were introduced by our contacts in Apple, to the computer software company Channelstorm and their software “LiveChannel” which  we now use in webcasting on several of the cameras. http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/rrcom/livechannel/livechannel.htm
I worked extensively in collaboration with the software engineers of the company to adapt the webcasting software to our application. They have freely provided us with the software as they are able to use our site as a valuable example of the success of their software.  After going through several Beta versions of the software, we now have a very useful tool for involving creative input from the students for our webcasts.  On campus we have used it to broadcast the weekly International Affairs program and have webcast two evening performances for the International Day presentations on campus. At Race Rocks, we use it in the live webcasts from the portable camera and the students of the racerocks.com activity have developed expertise in this software and are now interested in expanding their use of it to provide a bi-weekly live web cast which will be a presentation of events of the week at the college.

Objective 3: To educate Pearson College students about the marine environment and to involve these students in a direct stewardship experience.  
    In October, our college hosted the CISTA  schools conference. Four of the students of the racerocks.com activity gave 6 workshop presentations to the delegates.  Their topic was the use of technology for Environmental Conservation as a method of Community Action. Since the delegates were made up of teachers and students from across Canada, the US and Latin America, they experienced a great interchange of questions and ideas. It was clear that the “ownership“ of the racerocks.com process, gave our students confidence in their role as environmental stewards, and this was clearly evident to the participants.
    During our November Project week, this year, three of our first year students stayed at Race Rocks producing daily programs about the wildlife and the ecosystems of the island. They also were trained at  that time to operate the MPA when our eco- guardians are on leave. As a result of their work several videos have been added to the archives. Two of the students had been in the racerocks.com activity , and the other student was already familiar with the editing video program so that they were able to do the video and editing work in the making of the following QuickTime movies.

Daily Duties For Assistants to the MPA Guardian
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/viddailyduties.htm
Tidal Variation at Race Rocks at http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidrrtides.htm
Race Rocks Tour: with an English Version,  an Arabic Version , and a German Version at http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidrrvirtourara.htm
    For some time we have been concerned with the effects of the demolition blasting at the nearby Department of National Defence facilities on the marine mammal and bird populations at Race Rocks.  It has been our belief that mitigation of this impact could be done by controlled levels of blasting and proper timing. On November 7, 2002, the DND were still doing their demolition blasting exercises at Bentinck Island. These students were able to video the images of the impact of these blasts on the first day from the science centre window and on the second day from the top of the light tower. In the tower, they interviewed Mike Demarchi of LGL who is currently doing a contract for the Department of National Defense to monitor the impact of these blasts and to compare them with other disturbances at Race Rocks. This video will help in public education and is now included in our marine mammal archives at: http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidlionblasts.htm  In doing the work, they had a keen sense of the role that they were providing in terms of our on-going stewardship of the island  and they felt they had contributed by this process.
    The spring 2002 field lab program was completed with involvement of the following students in direct contact at Race Rocks.
    Spring 2002- 40 Biology first year students in three classes were involved in field research at Race Rocks. They did a population study in tidepools and an invertebrate survey.
    Spring 2002- 30 students of Environmental Systems did  several field labs on intertidal transect methods.
    Fall 2002- In orientation week ten students  were involved in a program of interpreting Race Rocks Live by webcasts for an afternoon at Race Rocks.  These webcasts were viewed by other students as an introduction to Race Rocks
    These environmental systems students also did their final exam on the island in May of 2002 and
    Fall 2002 – 36 students in first year biology did an introductory field survey at Race Rocks.

    In May 27 of 2002, I was invited to participate as a finalist in the New Media Awards ceremony in Toronto, having been nominated in the category of Educator of the Year.
    While there, I was able to visit the offices of the World Wildlife Fund  in support of an application for funding from this organization. Visits were also made to the Ontario Science Centre  and the Royal Ontario Museum to investigate the possibility of getting our educational resources available through the internet to these institutions.

Objective 4: To lead environmental field trips for local school children to Race Rocks.  Our school trips have been reduced to lessen the impact on the island but we have continued with using a system of student “reporters” from a school :
    In June three groups of such  students went with us to Race Rocks  where our students provided an informative introduction to ecology of the organisms at Race Rocks. This 17 minute video shows the kinds of experiences they have while out in the field, http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidwestmont2a.htm
The complete webcast went live to their schools and to other schools who could be on line. We also re-webcast the tapes of the sessions several times.
Objective 5: To facilitate marine education programs for schools across the country and internationally through racerocks.com
    In March a major project was undertaken at the request of the Apple Learning Interchange. Apple Computers were planning to set up a “Gallery of Best Practices” on their website.  We were invited to provide the resource materials detailing our innovations at Race Rocks for this special website.  Race Rocks  is currently the featured exhibit and can be found from the education links to the Apple Learning Interchange at http://ali.apple.com/
The gallery is set up to encourage others to try to incorporate this form of resource into their own instructional program.
An outline of the exhibit follows:
Introduction:  I provide an introduction by video of the way that Apple Learning Interchange is providing the distribution network making it possible for thousands of student connections per week.  I explain that this exhibit will provide you with a glimpse of our educational programs, the technology that makes it possible, as well as ideas to help use our resources in your classroom.
The Lesson : Here you will find an example learning activity that we use in our curriculum entitled: “A Project to Establish a Digital Taxonomic File.” We have also included a learning activity contributed from the Apple Learning Interchange which may give you ideas on how to use our live video streams and web resources in your classroom.  A weblink to an index of files that may be useful for statistics labs in biology or environmental systems and a link to the new section on resources for the Jason project are included.
Assessment : As well as showing the video on the environmental systems exam, a video with Garry and Laura discussing assessment is included: “ Every Field Lab in which the students are involved at Race Rocks becomes part of a portfolio of student work which is graded according to a number of criteria, as suggested by the International Baccalaureate Science Syllabi. We are particularly concerned with observational and interpretational skills, although manipulation, attitude, and planning skills may also be assessed. This first video presents a short discussion on assessment between Garry Fletcher and Laura Verhegge, faculty members in Biology and Environmental Systems at Lester B. Pearson College.
Student Work : In this file Example Student Research videos are highlighted. Rocks Island is a valuable component of the IB Environmental Systems and IB Biology curriculum at Pearson College of the Pacific. This island research center makes it possible to immerse students in real inquiry as they investigate ecosystems both on the surface of the island and below the surface of the surrounding water. Students work in small groups often with visiting scientists adding to the growing knowledge about life at Race Rocks. It is also possible for students at remote schools to participate in observational research and to join live reports by the students and staff at Pearson
Reflections : Video segments of students  and the faculty discussing their experiences  are provided.
Administrative Support: Angus Matthews provides an administrators perspective on the program, encouraging other educational administrators to take the leap and get involved in programs like this because of the spin-offs possible to other aspects of education.
Resources: This site summarizes the links to the racerocks.com website which relate to education in four areas
A)    Race Rocks Ecosystems
B)    B) History of Race Rocks
C)    Video
D)    Communications
http://www.uwc.ca/racerock/aliassets/resources.htm

Technology: I use an annotated slide show, to explain how one can use Apple streaming technology to share their local ecosystem with the world. By following through the process of how we use technology on the islands,  a model is presented for similar projects as part of educational programs elsewhere.
Background :Maps showing location and a profile of the history of the racerocks.com project are provided in this section.

    In the fall of 2002 we took on an added responsibility, that of being the Canadian content provider for the Jason Project . http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/jason/jasonproject.htm
With Assistance from the Jason Foundation, we hired Jane Johnston, to do the middle school level curriculum level work to bring together the resources of our site into Lesson Plans. These are now being made available on our website and are linked to the Jason website which is subscribed to by 70,000 teachers in the US.

Special curriculum guides are being developed for:
1.    Geology and Geography (Abiotic Characteristics at Race Rocks), http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/jason/abiotic/t_instr.html
2.    Preserving the Past and Present Culture of Race Rocks (The Thirteen Moons), http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/jason/firstnations/t_intro.html
3.    Maintaining our Coastal Ecosystems (An Ethology),
4.    The Northern Abalone, http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/jason/abal_seastar/t_info.html
5.    Pinnipeds, http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/jason/pinnipeds/seal_sealion_differ.htm
6.    Conservation.

    The production of the Race Rocks taxonomy is a curriculum development event that has consumed a great amount of my time this past year. http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/eco/taxalab/taxonomy.htm
This is a collaborative project with students and we have the goal of eventually achieving  a comprehensive linking of all the information and media resources for all the organisms of Race Rocks.   In the late fall and early spring terms 44 biology students contributed their records and 21 Environmental Systems students. This is currently being added to with another 48 biology students and a further 30 environmental systems students in the next term. By the end of next term, our taxonomy index will have grown to almost 150 species.  I emphasize to the students that this “digital legacy” which is a valuable addition to the management of this ecological treasure. These students are all exposed to a varying degree of research in doing these assignments, and it is anticipated that the end product  after several years will be a unique addition to the efforts for conservation of Biodiversity in the area.

Objective 6: To facilitate marine research projects by providing facilities and volunteers at Race Rocks.
    Three current first year students from Pearson College and Ryan Murphy, who graduated last year stayed at the Marine Science Centre for the first two weeks of June 2002. http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/rrcom/june02/webcrew.htm
Ryan had returned  to Race Rocks assisted by a research grant from Mt.Allison University  to do research on the macroalgal community. He was able to amass over 400 digital images of the macroalgae of Race Rocks in his underwater and intertidal photography for a digital herbarium project he is doing for the unversioties biology department . He also produced two algal videos  for our archives: http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archiveplants.htm
The students conducted daily live and prerecorded webcasts with me from the intertidal and from underwater using camera 4.
    For one of the webcasts we were joined by Sean LeRoy, Graduate Researcher, Georgia Basin Futures Project Sustainable Development Research Institute, University of British Columbia and Dr.James Tansey also of UBC. They came to participate in the webcast with Garry and Ryan on Marine Protected Areas in New Zealand and Canada with Tim Langlois, Leigh Marine Laboratory University of Auckland, and Anne Saloman, University of Washington, Zoology Department.
Two university students have completed their Master’s Thesis on Race Rocks with our assistance over the past year.
    Sean Leroy  of the UBC School of Community and Regional planning UBC, mentioned above, did research on Public Process and the Creation of a Marine Protected Area at Race Rocks British Columbia http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/aleroy/Portfolio/549C.html
As members of the Race Rocks Advisory Board, myself and Angus Matthews had provided our insights into the process in interviews he had conducted in the spring of 2002.

    In 2002, Taco Niet finished his Masters degree in the Engineering Department’s Institute for Integrated Energy Systems at the University of Victoria (IESVic)
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidtaco2a.htm
As a result of his work, several visitations have been made with  Individuals and Companies who are interested in promoting the use of Alternate Energy at Race Rocks.  Currently the Friends of Renewable Energy, BC (forebc.com) has taken up with the considerable enthusiasm the idea of a renewable energy cooperative and representatives will be making a site visit with me next week.

    We have continued to provide assistance to Dr. Anita Brinckmann-Voss for her hydroid research. In July, I assisted another researcher who was working on hydrocoral to get samples from Race Rocks.  Alberto Lindner is a Brazilian student in a Masters program in Duke University. He is now involved in analyzing the samples to determine if through DNA evidence, the two color morphs of Allopora can be designated as separate species or whether as can be determined by standard methods, they are actually the same species. His report and his masters thesis on this will be linked to this website when he is finished. http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vidlindner.htm

Objective 7:  Facilitate marine research projects by providing data from video cameras and data sensors that can be accessed through racerocks.com.
Some progress on this objective has been achieved, although accessing of all the environmental data through the internet is still being worked on. It is anticipated that this feature will take on added impetus in the next term.

Two other reports that also give an indication of our role in the operation and stewardship of the MPA  may be found on-line at:
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/admin/may02update.htm
and at
http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/admin/aug02update.htm

 

Ocean’s Alive: A Marine Life Weekend

Posted on by

“OCEAN’S ALIVE: A MARINE LIFE WEEKEND” Webcast Event from Race Rocks 

Originally published in The LINK, the college newspaper on January 10, 2002. number 7.

At the end of November, students gained the experience of live webcasting to contribute to a major marine educational project run by the Royal BC Museum. They were able to apply their own recently acquired technological skills to show in real time the Race Rocks Marine Protected Area.

GARRY FLETCHER GIVES US A REPORT

On the weekend of November 24-25, 8 students and Garry Fletcher participated in ” Ocean’s Alive – A Marine Life Weekend ” at the Royal BC Museum. Pearson College had been invited along with a dozen other marine interest groups to provide on-going displays over the two days of the weekend of projects designed to promote education and research in the local marine environment.

For half of Saturday and all of Sunday, Michael Kiprop and Olend Kondakciu operated the mobile camera 4 at Race Rocks while Garry and the students ran four computers and two projectors with the four live video streams coming from Race Rocks. Thanks to the loan of two Apple computer G4 Powerbook, one from from Soho Computers and from Westworld Computers in Victoria, they were able to present some of the on-line resources of the colleges racerocks.com website to some of the 2300 members of the public who went through the turnstyles of the museum over the weekend. Initial problems of receiving webcasts inside on the museum’s network were solved by bringing in and installing in the rafters our own Apple Airport Base station which allowed wireless transmissions of four video streams to the museum hallways.

Julia Clark and Virginie Lavallee , both second year Environmental Systems helped set up the equipment for the display and answer the public’s questions on Saturday morning while Damien Guihen of the racerocks activity helped Garry on the Saturday afternoon. For the Sunday presentations, Michael Cameron, Jaffar Saleh and Molly McKay, all members of the racerocks.com group each put in half a day for the presentations. It was a great opportunity to get out with the public to help promote the work we do at Race Rocks.

We at the college now almost take for granted the 24 hour live webcasts from Race Rocks and the weekly live webcast of various college presentations such as International Affairs. There was surprise and amazement from many visitors, however, who never realized before that they could get such interesting live images of the sea lions and seabirds right in their own nearby Strait of Juan de Fuca. Two couples touring Victoria from Great Britain were excited to know that from home they could now see the wildlife of the local area live on the internet. For times of webcasts from the campus, see the link to the webcast schedule from the college home page.

racerocks.com Education and Research in Real Time

Posted on by

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 RACEROCKS.COM Activity

Posted on by

http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/rrcom/rrcomactivity/rrcomactive.jpgSeptember 11, 2001 We met this afternoon for the first session of the racerocks.com activity at Lester Pearson College. A tragic day for all of us as events unfold in the US. After a discussion of how the racerocks.com program has developed over the past few years, and projections as to where we may take it from here, we ran a short sample webcast from the biology lab. We were able to show the eight new first year students in the activity the process involved in a webcast.

 

Monica works her magic with the sound system while Garry and Paul check out the webcast on the monitor.

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.

http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/rrcom/rrcomactivity/quicktimelive/crew2m.jpg

On February 14 , 2002, we did a live webcast for Keith Mitchell of ALI ( Apple learning Interchange) in his presentation at QuickTime Live in Hollywood California. This was the first time we tried out the new webcasting software “LiveChannel” from our new partners Channel Storm.

racerocks.com: Education and Research in Real Time

Posted on by

racerocks.com: Education and Research in Real Time
By Garry Fletcher

There are a few places on earth where a person who is naive in the principles of ecology can still have that feeling of “ah ha! Now I understand”. I understand why organisms are so intricately tied to their environment; how animals interact for purposes of food and mutual assistance; how many birds, plants, mammals and invertebrates are so closely tied together; how human intervention can be disruptive to natural things; and why it is essential to keep places like these preserved forever. The small Archipelago of islands in the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the Southern tip of Vancouver Island – known as Race Rocks by those who live here now, but as Xwayen, the place of the swift flowing water, by previous generations of First Nations people – is such a place.

So it was no wonder that Race Rocks attracted our attention at Lester B. Pearson College as far back as the late 1970’s. In 1980, when the area was established as a Provincial Ecological Reserve, the College assumed a role of Stewardship and started a program of basic research and recording of the features of the area. It takes only a few hours in any kind of weather to realize the value of the place as an educational resource. Through the years, it has promoted protection of and education about the unique ecosystems Race Rocks.

Their size and location make it difficult to encourage many people to visit the islands. So, in order to expose their wonders to the outside world, we collaborated with the B.C. Parks, the Royal BC Museum, and volunteers with expertise in the telecommunications industry to produce a week-long series of live T.V. Programs,”Underwater SAFARI ” in 1992. After that experience, I knew we just had to find a way to make this resource available to the world – without attracting so many people that the very values we were so enthusiastic about were threatened. By 1999, webcasting in real time had become a possibility, and so, with seed money from the Millennium Partnership Fund of Canada, racerocks.com was born.

From the beginning of the project, we required racerocks.com to remain universally accessible for the purposes of Education and Research, and we limited commercial advertisement to a minimum, with recognition of sponsors and supporters included in a special designated part of the website.

My priority with the website has been to include the ecology of Race Rocks as a resource for the objectives of the Biology and Environmental Systems classes at Lester B. Pearson College. In addition, we have highlighted the resource material links for the Grade 11 Biology curriculum for the Province of British Columbia. For the past year, the educational branch of Apple, the Apple Learning Interchange, (ALI) has hosted our video and audio feeds on the Akamai network. We have also collaborated with ALI to develop more curriculum links and to make “units of practice” accessible to all schools. Recently, with their assistance, we have added a Conference Room – a chat site for our cameras, and a discussion forum.

Collaboration with outside researchers has added another valuable educational dimension to the website. Several pages are now available profiling the work of scientists in documenting the physical and biological processes of Race Rocks.

We have also been working with local First Nations to build the stories and explanations of the central role of intertidal ecosytems in the lives of First Nations people, past and present. The theme of the 13 moons of the Coast Salish people will soon be a focus of some of the educational materials available on the website for school children. Eventually, sharing in the management of the resources of the Marine Protected Area with First Nations will provide a great educational angle.

Pearson College students play a major role in the production of Race Rocks content for the internet, making racerocks.com an educational experience for those who create and maintain it as well as for those who visit it.. In the past year, students have worked at least one afternoon a week learning to use programs like Adobe Go-Live, Adobe Photoshop, Quick TimeVR, iMovie , and Sorenson Broadcaster . On six occasions students were involved in live webcasts for presentations I was making in California, Victoria, and New York. One student presented to a conference in Halifax while I was back at Race Rocks making an underwater presentation with the other students of the racerocks.com activity.

Two students, Damien Guihen from Ireland and Jean-Olivier Dalphond from Quebec stayed on at Race Rocks for two weeks after the end of the college this past summer, working with the computers producing Virtual reality 360 degree scenes and video for the archives while diving frequently to observe and gather data.

Damien, who is back as a student this fall, has already realized the valuable contribution he will be able to pass on to new students in the activity. He summarized his experience in June like this.

“This summer I spent nearly two weeks on Race Rocks working with digital video, 360 degree panoramic movies, sensor upkeep and diving. The results of some of my work are available for view at www.racerocks.com/racerock/archives/vrindex.htm . From this page you can see a 360 degree view of the island from many points on the island and one from underwater. . . From my time spent on Race Rocks throughout the year I have learned many things about boats, video and, of course, diving. In the last two terms, I have developed a love for the ocean. As I live inland in Ireland, I have realized since I came home exactly how difficult it will be for me to live anywhere without a view of the ocean within five minutes walk. . . Diving at Race Rocks has presented me with some of the most beautiful and thrilling sights that I have seen in my life and provided me with a number of skills, many of which are as relevant in everyday life as they are underwater.

… Race Rocks is almost a second home for the students who get really involved with the project . . . and a magnificent case study for environmental systems and biology students as it possesses not only a dazzling biodiversity but also a variety of conditions such as the intertidal zones. Its fast, mineral rich currents and algae covering give it a fantastic scope for the study of ecosystems.

Students at Pearson College are not the only ones who benefit from this unique educational resource. Throughout the year we have conducted scheduled webcasts specifically for people in locations all over North America. From Victoria to New York, from Halifax to California and from Toronto to Texas, we have had audiences watching action on Race Rocks through the internet via our three constant live cameras and our mobile camera . . . This technology means that we can now reach classrooms anywhere with a speedy connection to the internet. . .”

Damien will share the skills he developed in computer graphics during his two-week stay on the island with other members of the racerocks.com activity this year.

A graduating student of Pearson College, Jean-Olivier has become an expert in the production of QuickTime movies for racerocks.com using iMovies . In the weeks at Race Rocks he was able to do another nine movies to add to our archives site.

“For the first two weeks of June, I have resided on Race Rocks with Damien Guihen from Ireland. We had a great time out there! Our main focus was to pursue the work done with the website, www.racerocks.com, throughout the school year. I’m now graduated from Pearson, and I wanted to spend some more time on the island before I left. I’m must say I’m really starting to like this place!

My ‘specialty’ this year was with underwater video and video editing. I have had the chance to not only dive in the unique waters of Race Rocks, but also to make use of my interest in images, to share their beauty with everyone via the Net.

Sometimes when I sit back and look at the window overlooking the ocean, I feel very lucky. Around me the inspiring scenery is one that I would hate seeing spoiled. The new Marine Protected Area designation of the surrounding waters of Race Rocks makes me feel safe. It really became a goal for me to try to show it to people who aren’t here, to try to capture of bit of the generosity of sight present here to show to people.

The sea water doesn’t show its fragility to the first look, but requires a close relationship with it, whether it is on land or underwater. The sensitive activities that take place are for me a natural order that need to be left to themselves to develop and evolve. Being around here this summer was great for that. A few people with real interest in the place came to visit. It was another opportunity to share my ideas. I have learned a lot here.”

The racerocks.com site has proven to be of great value for my own class instruction in biology and environmental systems. We use the opportunity of the mobile camera to do live webcast discussions in class and, as an added advantage, we can take a recorded one hour video and play it directly through the broadcaster. I have used this technique for several school visits this year. Four grade seven students with us on the island can serve as proxies for the rest of their class, allowing us to limit the number of people on the island while maintaining the personal connection with the classroom.

I have designed several labs using the materials on the web site, with new ones always in the planning stages. A lab on tidepools, with the detailed directions for measurement from digital images, helps students quantify bacterial growth from digital images of colonies. The transect files serve a valuable purpose in providing students with real data for detailing parameters of ecological niches of organisms.

Students make a lasting contribution by providing a digital legacy of their work on the internet, thus adding to the accumulated information on the unique ecosystems of the islands. Each year some students choose to do a biology or environmental systems extended essay or a research project on Race Rocks. Although these research papers are preliminary studies, they add greatly to the content of the site and demonstrate the wealth of data that can be obtained there.

Environmental factors at Race Rocks form the core of our next phase of work. Environmental Sensors are being installed in 5 different ecosystems here and real time readouts will be available on the website. By September, students will have access to a wealth of data and a database that will allow analysis and graphing of the data.

The technology of racerocks.com has enable our own and many other students to extend the boundaries of the classroom to experience a sensitive ecosystem while ensuring the ecological integrity of that ecosystem.

Race Rocks Sustainable Energy System Development

Posted on by
Canadian Hydrogen Conference June 17-21, 2001, Victoria, BC.
RACE ROCKS SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
Taco Niet, G. McLean
Institute for Integrated Energy Systems, University of Victoria
Victoria, B.C., Canada V8W 3P6
Tel: (250) 721-8936 Fax: (250) 721-6323

Abstract
Race Rocks is a small archipelago located just Southwest of Victoria, British Columbia in the Juan de Fuca Strait. An important Beacon for Coastal Navigation in this busy area is located on Race Rocks, which is also home to a stunning variety of marine mammals and birds. The Race Rocks site has become Canada’s first Marine Protected environment and is now carefully managed by a group of interested partieScreen Shot 2014-02-24 at 7.48.10 PMs including Pearson College and The Canadian Coastguard. The environmental integrity of the site is often jeopardised to bring diesel fuel to the site and the noise pollution on the site due to the diesel generators is significant. IESVic has stepped forward to evaluate the potential of renewable energy sources on-site to power a sustainable energy system. A preliminary study was performed as an innovative graduate course at the University of Victoria that exposed students to sustainable energy system design. Our conclusion is that with Tidal currents of up to 3.7 m/s, average winds of 21.6 km/h and large amounts of solar insolation, there are ample renewable resources available on the site to develop a sustainable integrated energy system capable of providing reliable power for the site. Race Rocks is therefore ideally
suited to become a showcase for renewable energy generation. This paper outlines the results of the feasibility study, discusses the opportunities available at Race Rocks and examines the progress to date. Requirements for the implementation of a sustainable energy system on the site are discussed.
See the full PDF: tacopaper

Archival images: Panoramic Views of Race Rocks.

Posted on by

These QuickTime VR or virtual reality panoramas allow you to look 360 degrees around a scene. We have created a series of VR movies of the island for you to get a better idea of just what the core of the MPA looks like.

To view the panoramas. Click on the links under the map picture below. You need the QuickTime plugin to view the files. If you can see the rotating image above, you have the correct software to view the panoramas.

This set of panoramas was made possible by a donation by Richard Catinus, Account Executive, Western Region, Apple Canada, Inc . He provided the software QTVR to the racerocks.com Activity at Pearson College.
Damien Guihen and Jean-Olivier Dalphond, Lester Pearson College students, stayed on at Race Rocks for two weeks in June 2001. They did the photography using a digital camera. Damien did the html of the pages and the assemblage of the QTVR panoramas .
June 2001.

SORRY , These movies have not been converted to mP4 yet so please come back later

islandviews

RACE ROCKS MPA FEATURED ON the CBC IDEAS PROGRAM

Posted on by

 

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