A Watershed-to-Ocean Visualization and Community Conservation Action Initiative

The Ocean Project strives to enhance the efforts of zoos, aquariums, science museums (ZAMs), and other conservation education organizations throughout the country and around the world to inspire their millions of visitors to take personal, community, and political action to protect our world's ocean.

Thanks to seed funding from the Bunting Family Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation, Save The Bay, and SoundCitizen, The Ocean Project has begun a new initiative to develop an interactive on-line watershed-to-ocean visualization and community conservation action prototype that will be made available to our Partner zoos, aquariums, science museums, and other conservation education organizations. Through this initial work, we expect to develop a process by which anyone can click on a virtual on-line globe to get directed to their ecological address, display the watersheds in their region, learn about their watershed's characteristics, and join local urgent or interesting conservation efforts.

The Ocean Project believes that even world citizens who live and work in the middle of a continent can feel connected to the ocean through their local watershed that flows to the ocean through a series of streams, rivers, and bays. We acknowledge that there is a growing opportunity to increase aquatic and ocean awareness and action through Internet-based applications made accessible through standard Web browsers. We would like to enable every Partner to participate in our process for their local watershed. Partners can participate by connecting their exhibits to a customized interface, through our on-line interface, or by promoting a Partner-specific Web address to the Watershed-to-Ocean Initiative Web address.

Within these Web pages, we present a growing list of the data layers we are interested in obtaining, the visualization techniques and literacy motivation we plan on providing for a visible connection of one's watershed to the ocean, and the on-line workflow process we envision for connecting ZAM visitors to continued learning and personal action opportunities in their own watershed.