Sharing Information

• What tools do the members of the JASON team use to exchange information?
• What kinds of signals are involved in using these tools, and how are the signals transmitted?

Relation to the Theme: In the research world, scientists share their methods and results through journal articles and presentations and-increasingly- through e-mail. The JASON VII Project also uses these standard forms, but gives researchers another means of sharing their observations: the "telepresence"-a real-time video transmission system designed to communicate the experience of actually being present at the research site. The Focus Questions for this investigation relate to the technologies required to make the telepresence possible:

• live television broadcasts
• interactivity during the broadcasts (remote "driving" of underwater vehicles and question-and-answer sessions with the JASON researchers through JASONnet, a private computer network)
• year-round interaction through JASON Online Systems on the Internet.
• (JASON Online Systems and JASONnet are discussed in Investigations 5 and 6 [in Unit Two] and in Investigation 15 [in Unit Three].)

To better understand the JASON communication systems, students will perform experiments in which they will directly encounter the technologies that form the backbone of JASON Online Systems and JASONnet. They will learn about three basic communication system components that are part of many of the JASON communication systems:

• Hard wires (such as fiber-optic cables)
• Over-the-air broadcast technology (such as television)
• Line-of-sight systems (such as satellite and microwave systems)

JASON VII Home Page

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Gene Carl Feldman (gene@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov) (301) 286-9428
Todd Carlo Viola, JASON Foundation for Education (todd@jason.org)
Revised: 30 Oct 1995