Coastal Middle School

Coastal Middle School Teachers and Students
Participate in Ossabest Program

Ossabest is a 3 year collaborative program for students and teachers to explore Ossabaw Island utilizing information technology. The program is hosted by Armstrong Atlantic State University faculty and students, in partnership with the Ossabaw Island Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The two week summer institute offers teachers and students an opportunity to journey back in time to a pristine natural island setting while simultaneously traveling light years to the most up-to-date advances in technology. With Global Positioning Systems, digital cameras, and laptops the journey begins.

Six students and six teachers from Coastal were selected to participate in this program with the goal of meshing the past and present and bringing the island expedition back to school in the fall in the form of research and virtual reality. Mapping the island, using real time weather and water sensor data, learning how to create electronic field guide entries and becoming proficient with Microsoft Excel are just a few of the experiences that are offered. Students learn the “art” of creating web pages using hypertext markup language (html) and cascading style sheets (css), posting entries on electronic field guides and assisting in mapping historic roads over 100 years old; these island roads are now being mapped by creating waypoints and importing the coordinates into Google maps for future use.

Ossabest is an awesome experience due to the journey back in time and the opportunity to connect 21st century technology; there is rarely an analogy between two such different settings. To allow students to appreciate the past and be able to connect it to the future offers hope that young people today will continue to preserve history and utilize present technology as a tool to remember and record for the future.

In the fall, teachers will be equipped with lesson plans to share their experiences with new students and inspire them to incorporate informational technology into all facets of learning, including the exploration of historic places. Returning students will utilize newly acquired computer skills such as html, css and excel to continue to use data from a living breathing barrier island.