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Ballard RELATED VIDEO CNN's RickLockridge reports on a program to teach students about rainforests Windows Media 28K 80K Robert Ballard says the current Jason Project is one of the most successful he's undertaken. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

April 9, 1999
Web posted at: 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 GMT)

AMAZON BASIN, Peru (CNN) -- The Jason of legend took his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. Now, a modern-day Jason and his school-age Argonauts have traveled to the rainforests of northern Peru in search of new discoveries.

Deep in the Amazon basin, amid the neon frogs and exotic birds, miles of fiber-optic cable snake through the forest, leading to a floating television studio.

At the helm is scientist Bob Ballard, host of a traveling, 10-year science show called "The Jason Project."

Ballard, who earned his fame by finding the Titanic in 1987, is now on a quest for bright young minds.

"I think you really have to recruit scientists and engineers," Ballard says. "I don't see my job any different than getting a winning NCAA basketball team on the court."

The show is named after the fabled explorers, Jason and the Argonauts. In this case, 20 handpicked high school students get to be the Argonauts to Ballard's Jason.

The Golden Fleece they pursue, according to Ballard, is the experience of learning, of doing, of being there.

Students walk over the wobbly bridge

"It's been amazing," says ninth-grader Stephanie Sverdrup. "You cannot even image what it is to be in the rainforest unless you have. No video, no book can convey the feeling."

Ballard and his Argonauts beam back several daily broadcasts via satellite -- slick, hour-long shows featuring other well-known scientists, watched by an estimated 800,000 high school students each year.

They get to meet Charlie the capybara (a large South American rodent), to taste piranha (rather than the other way around), and climb a wobbly rope and ladder walkway to the top of the rainforest canopy.

"When you're on the canopy walkway and you're looking down, it's like looking at the world through a green-tinted kaleidoscope," Sverdrup says.

Sunset in the Amazon rainforest

After a week of hard science, television production and environmental politics, the students go home polished rainforest ambassadors.

"We want them to go out and tell the world that science and technology are exciting," Ballard says.

Next year's Argonauts will aim higher -- and lower -- studying space at NASA's Johnson Space Center and the ocean at an undersea lab off the Florida coast.

Correspondent Rick Lockridge contributed to this report.

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