Shoals Marine Laboratory (SML), www.sml.cornell.edu, operated by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire, is in its 48th year of programs dedicated to marine research and education for undergraduates. Each summer, approximately 175 undergraduate students from all over the world participate in SML's credit courses and research internship programs and an additional 25 graduate students and researchers carry out thesis and long-term research on Appledore Island, a 95-acre island approximately six miles southeast of Portsmouth, NH in the Gulf of Maine. Appledore is an extraordinary physical location for exploring questions in field marine and island science with easy access to intertidal, subtidal, oceanic, and terrestrial habitats. It also offers opportunities to study sustainable engineering and the integration of power, water, and wastewater treatment systems at a scale that is approachable by students. This project will support the upgrade and significant enhancement of communications and information technology (IT) at SML to support the research and educational mission of this field station. SML's current IT infrastructure is nearly ten years old and is not able to support modern video-conferencing, video-dependent research, and mobile computing platforms. The improvements fall into three distinct communications categories including (1) the wide area network (WAN), (2) the local area network (LAN), and (3) major communications interfaces. The WAN improvements will establish a high-speed (50Mbps) symmetric microwave channel between the mainland and the island that will provide a fifty-fold increase in connectivity as compared to that in place on the island today. This will make high bandwidth communications applications possible, including videoconferencing, remote control of devices on the island from anywhere in the world, and the movement of large amounts of research data to and from the island. LAN improvements will significantly improve how researchers, students and staff on the island implement their work by providing fiber optic cable and high speed (100Mbps/1Gbps) LAN service across the island. The addition of major communications platforms, specifically two outdoor remote IP cameras and two Polycom video conferencing units, will provide direct support for research by students and mentoring of students. Broader Impacts: SML's mission is to support research, education, and conservation focused on undergraduates, and we are dedicated to delivering it effectively. This project will provide for additional research and educational opportunities that have not been possible in the past. A confluence of ingredients foster SML's success: an unspoiled oceanic environment, a spectacular cloistered island setting, a tight-knit community, a talented and enthusiastic faculty and staff, and courses that foster critical thinking and experiential education and research supported by a well-equipped facility. SML internship programs linking undergraduate researchers, engineers, and conservation biologists are a critical part of this success. SML students have contributed data since 1973 to the Appledore Island Transect Study, one of the most complete multi-decadal records of species diversity, distribution, and abundance in rocky intertidal habitats in the Gulf of Maine. The Appledore Island Banding Station has documented patterns of migratory birds in the spring and fall for the past 20 years. Twelve ongoing major research and survey programs attract ~40 investigators/year from ~10 universities. Graduate students (~4/year) base their thesis or dissertation research at SML. UNH and Cornell sponsor four undergraduate internship programs at SML, including: (1) Research Internships in Field Science (RIFS), an internally-funded successor to our NSF REU Site program that provides undergraduates opportunities for faculty-directed independent research; (2) Sustainable Engineering Internships (SEI) that provide undergraduate engineering students the opportunity to monitor, analyze, and refine the islands electrical, fresh-water, saltwater, and wastewater systems; (3) Marine Mammal Internships that use photography as a basis for non-disturbing mark-recapture population size and health estimates; and (4) Transect Internships that each summer extend the long time series of intertidal monitoring on Appledore Island. The communications and information technology improvements supported by this project will significantly and demonstrably extend the success of research and educational opportunities at the SML.
