Texas
LonghornAbout This Site
Texas
Longhorn
"Diving Into History" was created by Logan and Arem Thor (George) Merriweather, and Niek van Alphen. Logan and George are 14 year old homeschoolers and live in Pearland, Texas. Niek van Alphen age 16, is from the Netherlands. We all love history and science, nautical archaeology is a wonderful melding of these two fields. This project is part of ThinkQuest Internet Challenge an international program for students ages 12 through 19 that encourages them to use the Internet to design detailed and informative Web-based educational tools and materials.
Collaboration
Before I started to collaborate with my foreign friends I thought it would be difficult to communicate because of language barriers. As it turned out everyone on our team was able to correspond fluently in English. Our coaches were a great help, whenever we encountered an obstacle they were right there to help us over it.
Choosing our Subject
The reason we chose nautical archaeology as our topic is because it brings together history and technology. We originally considered creating a web-site about The Age of Discovery or on the recently discovered Cleopatra's Palace. However we decided to broaden our research, so we chose nautical archaeology as our subject. Each student picked one or two shipwrecks and or sunken ports, and researched them independently. After immense amounts of research we were ready to start our site.
Creating the Website
This was the most challenging aspect of the project! Agreeing on colors and fonts, frames or no frames, scanning graphics and obtaining copyright permission was quite a job. When we initially started we created a basic storyboard on paper and this became the skeleton of the Website. Although we changed many things along the way we were always able to stay on course. The best part of creating the Website was interviewing, via e-mail, various well known nautical archaeologists, their insight was invaluable in understanding this unique and fascinating branch of archaeology. One of the goals of this site is to educate people how truly valuable the submerged 'time capsules' are so that these pieces of our past are preserved and do not become the victim of greedy treasure hunters or destructive trawler fishing.
Dedication
This Website in dedicated with love to the memory of our Aunt Diana, whose courage and caring spirit will live forever in our hearts.
Diana Merriweather Ashby
March 22, 1963 - May 2, 1997
Beloved Wife, Daughter, Sister, Aunt and Friend
Founder of The Melanoma Research FoundationDedicated to Finding a Cure...
Because Tomorrow is Too Late
