National Marine Sanctuaries live!

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration´s (NOAA) National Marine Sanctuary Program serves as the trustee for a system of fourteen marine protected areas, encompassing over 150,000 square miles of ocean and Great Lakes waters from Washington State to the Florida Keys, and from Lake Huron to the Hawaiian Islands. Since passage of the National Marine Sanctuary Act in 1972, the sanctuary program has worked cooperatively with the public and its partners to protect and manage sanctuaries and enhance public awareness, understanding and appreciation of the ocean environment. In partnership with the JASON Foundation for Education and Institute for Exploration, we have established an educational and technological framework to bring the excitement of the nation´s underwater ecosystems to students by linking telepresence activities with system-wide oceanographic monitoring programs. This initiative, which will be featured on an Internet-based Ocean Science Education Portal, will integrate live video camera feeds with data streams as diverse as student-collected observations, satellite records, and measurements collected by monitoring stations in the National Marine Sanctuaries.