The purpose of this project is to use a web site as a tool to educate a large audience about the environment. The web site combines a mixture of media, including html (hypertext markup language) and also Shockwave (director lingo).  The web site has three main sections, which have other sub-categories. The web site is divided into: different topics involving the environment, other web sites that have valid environmental information, and a section that contains information about the creators and their goals. The center of the web site is the Topics section. It contains many environmental laws, policies, tips, and also an area specialized for kids. The web site is currently located at <http://www.Geocities.com/RainForest/ 5565/home.html> Currently we have received 47 emails from people who have visited our web site. People have written that our "web site provided useful and important information that was clear and easy to find." (enteeks@aol.com). We plan to release our software on CD-ROM, and also send the web site to libraries and schools, so that they can use it as a source of information for recent and developing environmental issues.

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to increase the general public's knowledge of the environment. Until recently people have been unaware of the condition of the environment. Although the condition is not life threatening, people must start to educate themselves about the problems that the environment is facing. We used the Internet as our education tool because it is graphically rich and it is a growing resource of information and education. Our long-term goal is to efficiently educate people about the environment so that they can help prevent its deterioration.

Community Relevance

Our project is geared toward educating people all around the world about the dangers the environment is facing. The idea for our project was created when we discovered scary statistics about New York's water, air, and hazardous waste. We then researched more about different aspects of the environment in the New York area. Our statistics showed that although the state is taking steps toward preserving and rejuvenating the environment. But there are still many aspects of the environment which need to be brought to the publics attention. Air Pollution in the New York State, although improved since 1980's, needs further improvement and development. Our drinking water, which comes from water suppliers all over New York, in some cases has contamination. Although the Safe Drinking Water Act ensures that every water supplier provides water that meets minimum health-based safety standards, it is important that we improve what is in our water systems, so that our water is clean and safe to drink. There has been a sudden increase in the hazardous waste generated by New York since 1989. In 1989 there was less than 1 million ton of Hazardous waste generated by New York. By 1995 that number had increased to 60 million tons of waste made by New York State. This and other problems are part of a growing concern, that unless people are aware of these facts and take action, we will seriously damage our ecosystem and the environment in which it exists.

Methodology

Our plan is to educate as many people as possible about the environment. Our research showed us that at the present time there are 149 million internet users. If we could reach .0001% of online users it would surpass the amount of people we would be able to reach via any other method. Currently we have had 603 visitors (4.18.99) to our web site since it's inception (3.05.99). Therefore by using the internet as our method of education, we will be able to reach a vast number of people, and make them aware of the recent problems that exist in the environment.

Implementation

Our plan is to bring together different types of information into one area so that people can easily access it, and learn about the environment. We have built the web site from the ground up, using a mixture of hypertext markup language and shockwave media. Shockwave is a programming language created by a company that makes a program called Director, which is a multimedia program. We created three main sections for the web site. There is a topic section, a link section, and a section about the goals of the creators. The topics section is constantly updated with current and important environmental issues. It currently contains; Ten Tips For An Environment Friendly Home, Information About The EPA, Types of Pollution, OEPA Law Summary, U.S. Environmental Law, Pollution Prevention Information, An Environmental Dictionary, The Environmental Movement, Current Events, A Chat Room about The Environment, a special page that celebrates Earth Day, and an area specialized for children. We have received over 100 emails that have praised our site. Mr. Weinstein (greenguy@yahoo.com) from New York City stated "the web site was clear and had a lot of current environmental information. I really enjoyed the shockwave presentation!" From the feedback we have received from both our mailing list and our email address, we believe that despite some minor problems people already have begun to learn more about the environment (603 Visitors). People who come to our web site will learn about environmental laws, policies, tips, and other important information. They will then be able to put that knowledge to good use; like recycling, reducing, and reusing materials. During the construction of our project we overcame many difficulties. The first obstacle we overcame was the selection of what media (paper, CD-ROM, Internet) to use to educate people about the environment. We choose the Internet as our primary education tool because to date there are over 149 million online users with approximately 7 new users ever minute (Cisco Systems). The second hurdle was the selection of the amount of information that would be put into the web site. This is an important decision because we did not want to flood the user with too much unnecessary information. We also wanted to include enough information so that we covered all audiences that have access to the Internet. Another barrier we overcame was the building of the web site. We used conventional HTML, with a few touches of shockwave. Since neither of us knew how to write shockwave code we had to learn the language and how it was constructed. This was a difficult task because it took time to learn the initial code and then took even longer to correctly code what we wanted into the system.

Conclusion

Many of our goals for this project were met and other we have yet to reach. Our "coverage of information critical to our society is admirable and is certain to be useful to researchers and concerned citizens" (G.N. Library Media Center) all over the world and chiefly New York State. We have set some new goals for the future which are just now starting to be achieved. The web site which we have created will soon be put onto the Great Neck Public School Web Site, which to date has had 9,865 visitors. This is a major step to the further implementation of our project. This will allow students, researchers, and people from our community to access the information which we have combined into one web site. We have also made plans to have our web site converted and put onto CD-ROM. We will then distribute it to other school districts and adult centers so that New York State may one day have cleaner air and water, and less hazardous waste.