Exploring a virtual reality educational web site: "EuroTurtle".

Exploring a virtual reality educational website: EuroTurtle Roger Poland1 (Scientific Committee of MEDASSET, Biology Department at King‘s College, Taunton, UK) Origins: The concept for the website arose in 1995, when the Biology Department at King‘s College conducted an ambitious conservation project involving pupils aged 17-18 in the Eastern Mediterranean (Poland, Hall, and Smith, 1996). Work carried out during this field trip illuminated the difficulty of finding and coordinating information about Mediterranean sea turtle conservation.

In 1996, the Internet was just developing and as yet, it was not widely used in education and European conservation. Originally, the website was designed to run as a more traditional relational database, to be distributed between users via floppy disks. It was soon realised that this information could be disseminated via the World Wide Web and the draft form of EuroTurtle was born in April, 1996.

The website was hosted the Exeter University, UK and EuroTurtle officially entered the public domain in January, 1997.

Since then, the website has grown and developed in an organic way, akin to the evolutionary process. It now occupies over 40 Mb of server space. During this "evolution" some information has become obsolete, and thus extinct, whilst other representations have survived because they have be found to be well fitted for purpose. Structurally, too, the developmental analogy can be seen. EuroTurtle is not a linear database, but at once branching and layered, with interconnections.

The site has continuously been redesigned to keep up with the changes in WWW technology and philosophy: this is discussed more fully below. May 1999 saw the 32,000th visitor to the website and it is not uncommon to receive 4 or 5 email messages per day from visitors to the EuroTurtle website.

EuroTurtle is Europe‘s first website fully devoted to the conservation and biology of sea turtles and is now internationally recognised as a significantly important website for Environmental Education and Conservation (Coyne, S. 1998).

Aims: Sea Turtles in the Mediterranean are under threat and their populations are declining (Poland,R. 1998). The main aim of EuroTurtle is to increase the awareness about the plight of these ancient animals and to provide conditions favourable to sustain a healthy population for the future.

Euroturtle is a website primarily concerned with Environmental Education although it also provides accurate and scientifically rich information about sea turtles. As far back as 1968 at the Biosphere Conference (UNESCO, Paris) the 1

basic outlines for Environmental Education were formulated using the technology and expertise available at that time. Since then, environmental education has developed significantly but has not yet resulted in its expected final goal, which is a general change of attitude and practice towards the environment (Cerovsky, 1996). Cerovsky suggested that this partial failure might have been due to the rather abstract appeal of some educational programmes. The Internet has a major role to play in making environmental education less abstract and more engaging, and the EuroTurtle approach aims to achieve awareness through interest, excitement and communication.

Design: From the outset, EuroTurtle was designed with the concept of "universal design" (DO-IT Brochures Guidelines, 1996-7): a philosophy which ensures that the visitor can use the website to its full potential and interact fully with it.

Navigation around the site must be easy and the quality of the information should not only be good and provided in many different formats, but also and give the user something they want. (Guide to good practices for the WWW, 1997).

EuroTurtle must also be able to evolve and change in order to keep up with the development of the Internet, and more importantly, the changes that occur within Education and Conservation.

Exploring EuroTurtle: 1.

Introduction:

The title page contains a short overview of the aims and origins of EuroTurtle. It also details the involvement of the conservation group MEDASSET (The Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles), Exeter University, Glasgow University and the Biology Department at King‘s College, Taunton. For first time visitors to EuroTurtle, full instructions are immediately available from this page. Frequent visitors can go directly to the homepage and its special navigation map and navigation medallion (button bar).

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Figure 1: The EuroTurtle Site Map

Figure 2: The EuroTurtle Navigation Medallion

2. Instructions: Clear instructions are provided on a dedicated page. There are two principal ways to navigate around EuroTurtle: by using the site map (Figure 1) or the navigation medallion or button bar, (Figure 2) which is available on all pages.

Traditional menus and a keyword system are also provided to aid navigation and quick access to pages. E-mail feedback has indicated that navigation around EuroTurtle is clear and easy to use. For example from a school pupil in the USA: �Dear EuroTurtle, I am a junior at Shaker High School in the United States.

I just wanted to tell you how impressed I was with your website. I am in the midst of a project on the Olive Ridley turtle and your website was so informative and well organised that it helped out quite a bit. No other website that I visited was as detailed as yours. Thank you very much, you helped me a great deal.

Yours cordially, Nicole Roylance. �

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3.

Home page:

The main feature of the homepage is the site map. This enables the user to go to any part of the website in one mouse click. The homepage is always within one click from any page. The navigation medallion, which is at the top right of every page, allows immediate access to the main sections of EuroTurtle without returning to the homepage. EuroTurtle has been designed so that it is very difficult to get lost, a feature vital if the website is to be used in education.

The site is regularly updated and new sections are being added monthly.

Each week sees the arrival of many email messages asking for help or giving feedback about the site, and all are answered within 48 hours of being received.

This information has informed the development of the website, and the level of sophistication that it has reached may in part be due to this quick "generation time" of adapting the information contained in it.

4. Educational resources: a) Sea Turtle Outlines: There are eight species of Mediterranean Marine Turtles, all endangered and protected. EuroTurtle provides detailed accounts for each species. The pages are rich in figures and data, which can be used at any level within education. For example, information on the Olive Ridley Turtle includes: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Picture of Olive Ridley Turtle: Size and body mass Diagnostic features Geographical distribution Habitat and Biology Typical habitats Migration Nesting areas Nesting periods Nesting behaviour Egg number, size and weight Incubation timing Size and weight of hatchlings Figure 3: Olive Ridley Turtle Maturity Courtship and mating Sex determination Hatching Hatching mortality and predation Feeding Threats to survival Keywords for this section 4

The data is scientifically accurate and checked by practising conservationists. Accompanying each species is a distribution map. There is also an additional section comparing the biology of the eight species and a special exercise on size comparison. This exercise has been used successfully within the maths curriculum. Full instructions are given on how to conduct the exercise.

There is also a table provided to fill in the answers as the students work out the results.

E-mail message from a satisfied user: Roger, I am enjoying reading your site. I am a mathematics instructor at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City, Mo, USA and am team teaching a basic mathematics and reading course (for developmental students) this semester with a reading instructor. Our students are reading the book �Survive the Savage Seas• for the reading portion of the class, but I am also having them work some related math problems. The Duggal family in the book survived 38 days on a dinghy and flotation raft with very little water or food and part of their survival was due to catching and eating sea turtles. I found your site and would like to use parts of it for reading comprehension and other parts to make up mathematics problems for the students to work. Some of the things I would like to include are for the students to get a realistic feel for how big the turtle were and you give some good data about mean lengths. The information about temperatures for hatching males or females is also particularly interesting. We will not make the site in any way commercial but would like to print portions of it for student assignments and possibly have students visit your site for material for a project.

Martha Martha Haehl Maple Woods Community College 2601 N. E. Barry Rd. Kansas City, Mo. 64156 (816) 437-3147

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b) Sea Turtle Identification: Teaching about biological classification and the use of keys for identification can be difficult and many students find it very boring. EuroTurtle provides a graphic and a scientific branching key for each species of turtle and these link directly into the species outlines. Three educational exercises are provided, and full notes for teachers accompany these. The key and the three exercises have been extensively trialed by a number of schools. Each quiz can be e-mailed to EuroTurtle, where it is corrected and sent back to the participant. One quiz uses stamps and phone card images as a source for identification whilst another provides postcards to identify and colour in. EuroTurtle has a gallery showing some of the postcards completed by pupils. The feedback from the students themselves has been very positive.

Extract from a letter sent by a teacher who used the key: ”I‘ve now used the EuroTurtle site with two year 7 groups. We used quiz 1 with the graphic identification key. Some found it quite difficult as they were mixed ability groups but I‘m glad to say that almost all the pupils enjoyed the ‘experience‘ and wanted to carry on in their own time. Most took ‘postcards‘ home to colour in and send to you. I was especially pleased that many more of the limited pupils took the time to do this.

I have included a number of letters written by pupils about the experience. Please remember that these are 12 year olds and many have not written letters often.

Dave Dupont ( Mill Chase Community School, Hampshire)

c) The Sea Turtle Adventure game: One of the first educational resources on EuroTurtle was a graphic adventure game where an individual takes control of a female loggerhead sea turtle attempting to lay her eggs on a Mediterranean island. The game accurately simulates the threats to successful reproduction and was based on a computer model. The game has been extensively tested by a number of schools and the results and teacher notes are available within EuroTurtle (Poland and Baggott, 1997). One school in Athens took the game even further and constructed a giant playing board in their playground. They then played the game as part of an Environmental Awareness week.

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d) The Bonekit: One of the more recent additions to this website has been a group of interactive pages based around the construction of the unusual sea turtle skeleton and how it compares to that of a human. The are animated exploding skeletons and a skeleton construction quiz. The pages were constructed in collaboration with a school in Dorset. There are plans to add a worksheet into this section.

Figure 4: "Turtles vs Humans" - a worksheet in which pupils must distinguish between the bones belonging to a turtle skeleton and a human skeleton

e) Clickable turtle: This is a very simple game, which has fascinated many students. A clickable map reveals the parts of a turtle - can they find all twelve parts?

f) The Virtual Field Station - VFS

The Virtual Field Station (VFS) is a novel web-based software application which is designed to be used by A-level and undergraduate Biology/Environmental Studies students wishing to gain experience in ecological field work. The VFS is accessed from the EuroTurtle homepage. The VFS is located on a mythical Eastern Mediterranean Island ("Fouramos") well known for 7

its Sea Turtle nesting beaches and outstanding natural beauty. It is a smallish island and becoming increasingly popular with tourists from Europe. The Island is decidedly Greek in style but with a Turkish flavour and influence. The sea turtle nesting sites are located around the island on a number of beaches although the largest and most protected location is in the south of the island where the field station is located. The field station is the headquarters of a dedicated Sea Turtle Conservation group known as the FMTP (Fouramos Marine Turtle Project). The group monitors and protects the island's two species of sea turtle although law protects not all of the beaches.

Much of the design of the Island and its Field Station is based on locations from around the Mediterranean, much of the information gained from field work carried out by students. The Field Station itself is closely modelled on an actual centre located on the Greek Island of Kefalonia. Students can visit the Field Centre where they will be given specific field work tasks linked to the ecology and conservation of sea turtles. A considerable amount of work has already been completed in the authoring and preliminary trialing of the VFS. It is now in the process of validation.

Comment from a conservationist who has worked on the real island on which the VFS is based: � I must say I am very impressed with it all - you can build up quite a picture of how the island may be. Several parts felt very familiar, especially at the field station. I was very surprised to find a photograph of myself on top of the LandRover!

I thought the office was excellent, especially the way information was held in the filing cabinets and on posters. This offers an organised way of accessing a large amount of information, without it all appearing too overwhelming. I can see that there is much scope for extending all of this, through the diary and task pad, etc.�

Rebecca Whitfield 1999

5. Conservation resources: EuroTurtle contains a large collection of conservation resources, largely based around the threats to the survival of sea turtles. Two notable sections are the threats posed by an airport on a Greek island and from fishing. The website is also the home for a number of Conservation organisations such as the KMTP (Kefalonian Marine Turtle Project) and MEDASSET. The WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals) also has its Turtle Alert brochure hosted on EuroTurtle.

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6. Web links: EuroTurtle also has a page devoted to important turtle websites, many of these links being forged by e-mail contact from those who have visited the website.

Evidence for Success?

How do you gauge success for a website? As far as EuroTurtle is concerned, there have been some important indicators that suggest that it is achieving its aims and objectives and these are outlined below: a) Visitors to the website: Since it began in January 1996, the number of visitors has steadily increased. At the last count in May, over 32,000 people had accesses the homepage. b) E-mail messages: So far, over 800 e-mail messages have been received via the website and the vast majority have been answered with 48 hours. The messages can be categorised into a number of types: • Requests for information from students and teachers.

• Requests for information from conservationists and scientists.

• Requests for information from journalists and film/TV producers.

• Requests for help from Museums and conservation groups.

• Comments on the EuroTurtle website.

• Responses to educational tasks e.g. adventure game.

• Volunteers asking for information about turtle conservation work.

• Applications forms from volunteers wishing to work on Sea Turtle projects.

• Applications to join the conservation group - MEDASSET Most of the messages are very positive in their response to the website and there are surprisingly few bogus or crack-pot communications.

c) Scientific validation: Many of the educational sections have been validated by trials with students of all ages. The Adventure Game, Identification Key and Virtual Field Station have now all been validated and there are significant indications that they do increase environmental awareness in a positive and exciting fashion, (Poland and Baggott, 1997; Poland, Lee and Baggott, 1997).

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d) Citations: EuroTurtle has been sited in a number of prominent journals as being an important website for education and conservation (Marine Turtle Newsletter, Editorial, July 1998) and more recently in the Journal of Biological Education, as a good example of a well designed website, (Baggott, Nichol and Watson, 1999). e) Involvement by others: A number of schools and conservation organisations have contributed to EuroTurtle. Probably the most successful and exciting projects are the Bone Kit pages, which were created by a school in Dorset, UK, and the Italian turtle pages by a school in Naples, Italy. EuroTurtle also hosts two mini-websites for two conservation organisations. f) EuroTurtle as an information provider: EuroTurtle has also provided information for numerous newspaper and magazine articles, two films and most recently, the photographs and scientific detail for a major exhibition on Global Positioning techniques at the Science Museum in London.

The Future: The aim is that EuroTurtle, and the turtles it aims to protect, will survive well into the next century. The next project within EuroTurtle will be a satellitetracking project for schools (starting in August 1999). A female Green Turtle, fitted with a satellite tracking device, will be released from Cyprus and her daily positions will be available, via EuroTurtle: students will then record and track the progress of this endangered species of marine turtle. As far as it is known, this is the first time that such an exercise has been conducted within Europe.

The Biology and Threat sections will also continue to expand during the course of the coming year.

Inevitably, there will be no conclusion to EuroTurtle because of the evolving nature of education, conservation and Internet possibilities. The confluence of these factors makes the field a very dynamic and productive educational innovation. EuroTurtle is probably the most advanced website of this kind on the Internet.

References: Baggott, L.M. Nichol.J. Watson,K. (1999) Web Authoring for beginners, Journal of Biological Education, Vol 33, No.2 pages 105-108 Coyne, S. (July 1998) Sea Turtles on the Internet. Guest Editorial, Marine Turtle Newsletter, Issuue No.81 Poland, R. (1998) Changes in populations of marine turtles. Testudo, Vol 4, No.5 pages 3-15

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Poland, R., Baggott, L.M. (1997) Use of an Educational and research Internet database (EuroTurtle) in Initial Teacher Training. CAL97 International Conference Superhighways, Super CAL, Super Learning. Conference Proceedings Abstract No.175a p30-37. ISBN 85068 188X. Poland, R., Lee, H., Baggott, L.M. (1997) EuroTurtle- use with school pupils of an interactive key for biological identification. CAL97 International Conference Superhighways, Super CAL, Super Learning. Conference Proceedings . ISBN 85068 188X. Poland, R., Hall G. & Smith, M. (1996) Turtles and Tourists: A hands-on Experience of Conservation for 6th Formers from King‘s College, Taunton on the Ionian Island of Zakynthos. Journal of Biological Education, Vol 30, No.2 pages 120-128 Internet references Cerovsky, J., President, ECOPOINT Foundation, Czech IUCN(1997), Raising Environmental Awareness through Education. URL: http://www.hol.gr (then use keyword turtle‘ in search engine).

Guide to good practices for WWW authors. (1996).

URL:http//www.man.ac.uk/MVC//SIMA/Isaacs/toc.html DO-IT Brochures: Universal Design of World Wide Web Pages (1997).

URL:http//weber.u.washington.edu/~doit/Brochures/universal.design.htm

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