On Thursday, October 23, at 10:15 AM, Dr. Charles Messing, Professor at Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center, and Dr. J. P. Keener, Supervisor of Secondary Science Curricula for Broward Schools, co-hosted the exciting first live broadcast of "The Sherlock Project: Investigating the Natural World" from the Port Everglades entrance channel at John U. Lloyd State Park in Hollywood, FL.

The Sherlock Project, a partnership between NSU and the School Board of Broward County, is an interactive science-education television program that represents the first time the Broward Educational Communications Network (BECON) used wireless microwave-based teleconferencing technology to beam a program live from the natural environment to Broward public school classrooms. Messing and Keener were accompanied by University School science teacher Doug Garber and four ninth-grade students who collected local environmental data during the show. In addition, the co-hosts fielded questions sent in live from four middle schools that participated in the broadcast. The production team broadcast the 40-minute show twice so that different schools could view it during different class periods.

This first episode concerned the concepts of environment, ecosystems, their biotic and abiotic components, and the interactions among them. While Keener discussed the tides and the adaptations of ghost crabs from the sandy beach environment, Messing covered topics such as wave action, trade-offs between getting pounded by waves or drying out, and the adaptations of snails in the rocky intertidal zone. Students in participating schools were clearly paying attention as their questions, beamed live from classroom to the remote production facility, covered a wide range of subjects. They wanted to know about saltwater intruding into South Florida's freshwater resources as well as the differences between male and female crabs.

Future episodes, each based at a different remote location, will cover a wide range of topics, from Newton's laws of motion to dinosaurs and fossils. Each will treat FCAT-related science topics for middle grade students, and include a range of science vocabulary and concepts.