NOAA's Chesapeake Exploration will bring the science of the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail to life through the use of data from the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS) and other partners, including the NOAA National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). NOAA, in partnership with National Geographic and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is developing this online curriculum to give teachers unprecedented access to lessons designed around real-time data.

Students will be able to query observational platforms throughout the Bay from their classroom. The information will populate “dynamic worksheets” that ask the students to think through scientific principles related to water quality and weather phenomena using the current observation data. Students' work will be submitted online to their teacher, who will have access to an individualized set of answer keys for that specific data. Teachers will have the ability to create a unique online environment for their classrooms, including locking parameters such as date/time so all students are using the same data sets and storing student answers online for easy grading.

Chesapeake Exploration provides an exciting opportunity to further explore the concepts introduced by the NOAA Estuaries 101 curriculum. The Chesapeake Exploration curriculum beta version is scheduled to be launched in spring 2012.