The Citizen is published by
Corporate Communication
for active and retired
Georgia Power employees.
Address internal
correspondence to:
The Citizen
Bin 10220
241 Ralph McGill Blvd.
Atlanta, Georgia 30308
E-mail
citizen@southernco.com
Retirees
Please report address
changes to the Southern
Company Employee-Retiree
Service Center by calling
1-888-435-7563.
Georgia Power helps students learn
about Ossabaw
This summer, 40 students and 30 teachers from Savannah and Chatham County schools spent three days on Ossabaw Island, off the coast of Savannah, learning about the culture and ecology of the island.
The program, known as OssaBest, allows students and teachers to gather data such as temperature, salinity, wind speed, and other meteorological data. Armed with the data, students and teachers are able to take it back to the classroom to enhance their learning experience.
Georgia Power was instrumental in helping the program take shape, thanks to a $100,000 donation the company made to the Ossabaw Island Foundation and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in 2007. The donation helped the foundation install a weather station, network sensors and a wireless communication system that will turn the island into a giant observatory.
Prior to receiving the donation, Armstrong Atlantic University received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to design a program to encourage students in middle and high school to choose careers in information technology. The university made Ossabaw Island the focal point of its effort.
"We asked Georgia Power to sponsor the initial steps in constructing the network of sensors and Web cameras," said Paul Pressly, director of the Ossabaw Foundation's education programs. "Georgia Power made this dream possible. Their gift allowed this observatory to take shape."
Ossabaw Island is Georgia's third-largest barrier island. It has more than 26,000 acres and comprises 11,800 acres of uplands covered with second-growth forest interspersed with creeks, rivers and tidal marsh.
Managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Ossabaw Island is the only island in Georgia reserved exclusively for educational and scientific purposes. The Ossabaw Island Foundation, a Savannah-based non-profit organization, works cooperatively with the Georgia DNR to manage access to the island for public educational programs.
"This island is superb," said Jullian Pafford, assistant to Coastal region vice president Cathy Hill. "Ossabaw is undisturbed and it tells a good story about barrier islands, and how we can leave a legacy of education and ecology to our children."
Pafford said the Georgia Power Foundation, Savannah Electric Foundation, and Southern Company Foundation each made donations to ensure that the Ossabaw Foundation received what it needed to jump-start the project.
"Georgia Power took the lead and Savannah Electric and Southern Company joined to make this gift possible," said Pafford. "Teaching ecology and conservation is a worthy cause and we are proud to be part of it."
Herb Windom, professor emeritus at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, said the goal is to turn Ossabaw into a virtual laboratory.
"We have plans to set cameras and sensors all over the island," said Windom. "Our goal is to be able to observe wildlife and study the ecology of the island 24 hours a day. We want to make this available to every school and student in Georgia. Thanks to the donation by Georgia Power and a matching donation from the Georgia Research Alliance, the possibilities for this project are endless."
To honor Georgia Power, the Ossabaw Foundation named the observatory the Georgia Power Observatory.
"Georgia Power has been a good friend and we appreciate everything that it has done," said Pressly.
The island is populated with thousands of deer and feral hogs. Alligators are also plentiful on Ossabaw.
Beyond the ecological history, Ossabaw has a rich cultural history. The island was the home of Native Americans for 4,000 years before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century. In the 1700s, the island was transformed into a plantation. Slaves were brought to Ossabaw to cultivate cotton.
By the mid-1800s, more than 130 slaves lived on the island. Ossabaw Island is one of the islands included in the "40 acres and a mule" special order issued in 1865 by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, which applied to black families who lived near the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The special order promised freed slaves 40 acres of land to farm, and a mule with which to drag a plow so land could be cultivated.
By the 1890s, most of the slaves had left the island. In 1923, the island was bought by Henry Torrey, a Michigan physician, who used the island as a winter residence. His daughter, Eleanor Torrey-West, established the Ossabaw Foundation in 1961, and in 1978 the Torrey and West families sold and gift-deeded Ossabaw to Georgia, making it Georgia's first heritage preserve.
"This island has an incredible history and we want to share it with the state and beyond," said Pressly. "Through our network of sensors and Web cams, we have an opportunity of redefining how coastal ecology and culture is taught in this state."