Brown University, Providence, RI

What could pretty pictures possibly mean to the health of the Chesapeake Bay? Well, I’ll tell you. If the middle school science teachers are anything like my mother, a high school history teacher, then they are wary of computers. But a well-designed user interface is one way to make a computer product more appealing. 

Watershed Radio is a watershed education project focusing on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.  Its mascot is a duck talking into a microphone.  As the name and logo imply, it is a daily radio spot.  But as a whole, Watershed Radio is a conglomeration of media: radio programs, written articles, and resources, all cemented together by its website. Computers should be the vehicle for getting Watershed Radio into classrooms.

Many days at SERC would find me writing articles or activities for Watershed Radio.  (In Internet-land, they call that stuff “content.”)  But I spent plenty of days in front of Photoshop and Dreamweaver, pushing pixels, making an attractive and easy-to-navigate CD.  Hopefully my little graphics of a radio and a telephone will entice teachers.  And then they’ll get to the real stuff: the radio spots and activities which teach about watershed issues.

The duck beckons.