As sensing technology becomes an ever larger part of the scientific landscape, it presents new opportunities for resource-poor institutions to access data that formerly could only be collected by well-equipped laboratories. Buoy sensors, satellite imagery, web cameras, and stationary sensor arrays are among the technological advances currently providing data streams to interested users. The anticipated deployment of the National Ecological Observatory Network will soon add to the amount and variety of information readily available via the Internet. These innovations provide students and researchers with access to material, measurements and locations that they would not have otherwise. This poster presents some examples of how online near real-time data can be incorporated into teaching and research experiences – including the American Meteorological Society's Online Ocean Studies course and an ecology field studies course that employs data from the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing. Such lessons familiarize students with authentic research as well as course content that would previously have been cost-prohibitive.