| "Sea Squirt is kind of a play on words that to me encompasses both the ocean and kids." | |
| Priscilla Billig, Hawaii Sea Grant |
|
After finding a suitable rock or hunk of coral to call home, juvenile red Sea Squirts no longer need their brains, so they eat them. This is just one of the pieces of marine information that students and teachers can find on Hawaii Sea Grant's award-winning Web site for kids, Sea Squirt.
"I saw Sea Grant's Web site as practically a blank slate and a wonderful opportunity to use today's technology as an outreach tool," explains Priscilla Billig, Hawaii Sea Grant's communication director. "The children's component was a fun way to start."
That "start" was recently selected as one of the best educational resources on the Web by Lightspan, Inc., a provider of curriculum-based educational software and Internet products and services. Sea Squirt is now a featured link in Lightspan's Study Web, which provides educational resources for students and teachers.
Targeting fourth to ninth graders, Sea Squirt presents Hawaii-based marine science information in a way that is "fun, engaging, and educational," says Billig. The site was developed over the past five years with the assistance of student workers from the University of Hawaii, who help with design, create databases, such as a virtual aquarium, and act as the site's technicians.
"I began by compiling existing information, matching it with interesting photos, and ordering it in a way that would make sense to the student and teacher," Billig says. "My graphic artist provided original drawings and was an integral part of the creative team."
"At the beginning, I did all the illustrations and whatever the student [worker] needed that was artistic," explains Diane Nakashima, Hawaii Sea Grant graphic artist and publications specialist. "Anything we found interesting, we put in a box so the student [worker] could see what we were focusing on and what we were gearing toward." A recent student worker was a graduate art student who took over most of the site's graphic design.
The name Sea Squirt was chosen for the site, Billig says, because she "wanted a silly name that would attract children. Sea Squirt is kind of a play on words that to me encompasses both the ocean and kids. It's also a rather interesting little creature in its own right."
Children and teachers seem to be responding to the site and its contents, she says. "I know Sea Squirt reaches kids around the world because I receive e-mails and even letters from children, teachers, and parents who either comment on the helpfulness of the site or who request more written material for their classrooms." There are plans to include more educational materials on the site that will serve as resources for curriculum development.
"I feel that, like in any creative process, developing Sea Squirt required much trial and error, discovering what would work and what would bomb," Billig says. "I'm glad we've gotten this far, but I emphasize that it is still a work in progress. I feel we have a good, solid foundation on which to build. After all, the process of education should never fully reach its end."
To view Sea Squirt, point your browser to www.soest.hawaii.edu/SEAGRANT/kids/main.html. For more information on how the site was developed, contact Priscilla Billig at (808) 956-2414, or e-mail pbillig@soest.hawaii.edu.
