In my classroom, webcams bring the world to my students--live! I can give an animal talk while my students watch a live webcam image from our local zoo or a reserve in another country. The excitement level of viewing webcams rivals that of my most engaging lessons. With live images of familiar animals at their fingertips, it's hard to say "no" when they plea to check-in on the animals everyday--multiple times a day!
For this project, I'll group the uses of webcams in three categories:
1. Monitoring tools for the scientific community
2. Windows into the outdoors for outdoor recreation
3. An educational hook for wildlife care and conservation
Webcams are definitely a kind approach for studying animal behavior and monitoring conservation efforts, but do have some drawbacks.
1. There are reports that poachers have used webcams to locate the eggs of a rare species of bird. I'll update this claim with specific details and note the resource.
2. Most often, webcams don't include an audio track. This means that although you can see behaviors and interactions between animals, researchers and citizen scientists aren't able to collect verbal communication observations.
2. Webcams are generally stationary. The field of view is determined by the fixed angle of the webcam, and often this doesn't change. Therefore, if there's something notable happening just out of view of the camera, there's no way of knowing that it ever happened.
3. The "web" in "webcams" requires an internet connection. This can be expensive to establish and maintain--especially in remote areas of the world.
Very cool with some great ideas! Thank you for sharing! :-)
ReplyDeleteVery cool with some great ideas! Thank you for sharing! :-)
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