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students to research water
without getting wet
by
Marie Zhuikov 
High school and community college students in Minnesota are getting
the opportunity to conduct water research from the comfort of their
computer chairs. The National Science Foundation awarded the University
of Minnesota's Sea Grant Program, Natural
Resources Research Institute, and College of Education and Human
Service Professions, $656,600 for a high-tech, three-year project
where students can create their own water monitoring projects using
Geographic Information System technology, the Internet and robotic
Remote
Underwater Sampling Station Site (RUSS) units developed by University
and industry partners. Although the project is beginning in Minnesota,
the information is accessible to anyone with an Internet
link.
"We expect that
students benefiting from this project will become the highly-skilled environmental
scientists and technicians of tomorrow," said Bruce Munson, Sea Grant Marine Educator.
"In order to succeed as scientists and environmental technicians in the future,
students need to become familiar with this technology now."
Teams of academic, science, and technology specialists will develop
a curriculum that teaches basic science concepts. The actual studies
will be done with the help of RUSS, a patent-pending water sampling
robot that students will program to gather, measure, analyze,
chart and report water quality data. RUSS units have been placed
in four diverse Minnesota lakes so students can compare and contrast
"real-time" data from differing sites.
The RUSS units are powered by solar energy and use
cellular phone transmissions to relay data via specially-designed software. "RUSS
has the capability to operate continuously 24 hours a day," said Rich Axler, an
aquatic ecologist at the Natural Resources Research Institute. "This provides
students the opportunity to design their own experiments and answer their own
questions, such as how a major storm affects water quality." 
Four of these robotic Remote Underwater Sampling Stations have
been placed in Minnesota lakes to help students gather water quality
data.
"Each RUSS unit can be accessed by several students and still
maintain each individual's data, which makes RUSS perfectly suited for this project,"
said Cindy Hagley, Sea Grant Water Quality Educator. Final curricula will be
disseminated through printed materials, an interactive compact disk, a Web site,
in-service training workshops, and presentations at professional conferences. For
more information about this project, contact Bruce Munson at 218.726.6324.
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