The Bridge Web Site: Growing and Sustaining Partnerships Between Ocean Science and Education

• Main Authors: Vicki Price Clark, Lisa Ayers Lawrence, Christopher Petrone, Lee Larkin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Oceanography Society 2009-06-01
• Series: Oceanography
• Subjects: NOPP; education; website; online resources; marine education
• Online Access: http://tos.org/oceanography/archive/22-2_clark.pdf

When physicist Tim Berners-Lee and a team of fellow scientists at the European Center for High Energy Physics (CERN) launched the first-ever Web site in 1989, their goal was to make it easier for scientists to access research documents and scientific data (CERN, 2008). In 1998, Virginia Sea Grant educators at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) had a similar goal: to make ocean science educational resources and current research data more accessible to classroom teachers. The Virginia Sea Grant education team took the first step toward accomplishing this goal by launching a Web site of its own, called "Bridge." The name was inspired by the idea of a ship's bridge with a teacher at the helm, navigating "an ocean of marine education data." It also represents a bridge spanning the divide between the education and the ocean research communities, which is the essence of the Bridge project's mission.