Tasmanian students will have hands-on training in an emerging technology with applications from saving lives from natural disasters to helping travellers find their way with Google Earth.
Three Tasmanian schools will have a GPS satellite receiver station beaming spatial information from their schoolyard for use by schools across the country.
The GPS receivers continuously log satellite data and enable positions to be calculated to the millimetre, sending the data to Continuously Operating Reference Stations at Geoscience Australia in Canberra.
The use of "location information" helps all of us to make better informed decisions on a range of economic, environmental and social issues and is used increasingly across the globe.
Taroona High School today became the first school to hook into the technology, with installations expected at Devonport High School and Lilydale District School later this year.
The Taroona students will use the Spatial Discovery resource in the ongoing study of the School Creek Landslide, one of only two active landslides being monitored by Mineral Resources Tasmania.
The GPS and reference stations have a much wider application too – for instance in enabling accurate navigation to guide heavy machinery and in precision agriculture such as automated tractors and controlled traffic farming.
The new Spatial Discovery program will turn today's students into tomorrow's specialists, creating a job ready generation in a growing industry that will impact areas of our competitive strength including agriculture and mining.
The Liberal Government is committed to developing skills in this technology to help Tasmania meet future challenges in the growth industry and build on our competitive strengths.
The installations have been funded by the Federal Government through the Education Investment Fund under the AuScope GPS in Schools Program.
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