It has been four years since Oceana opened its doors in Belize and today the office introduced its own website to share and promote the work that it does. The user-friendly website, www.oceanateachbz.com is designed to assist students and educators with environmental information. Outgoing Vice President of Oceana in Belize, Audrey Matura-Shepherd, explained to reporters today how it came about.
AUDREY MATURA SHEPHERD
“What we did instead of trying to respond to everyone, we had a marine scientist here by the name of Leah Berry, she came here on a consultation, she did her work and left but she saw the demands we were having for information. Having worked at another institution in the US and them having developed a website that would address some of the very same questions people ask us, she suggested we do the same. So, she had to write them since they had the rights over this idea and how it is laid out and she contacted them and asked if we could use some of their information and localize it and she said the best way Oceana can do it is to launch the website that would be very educational and very informative; of course, none of us here had the capacity; we loved the idea; then Miss Idalia Machuca who is studying abroad in Canada had written us and asked if she could do an internship with us and Leah, having read her qualifications that we can ask her to take on this challenge; it was amazing because she has never built a website but she knew how to do research, she knew how to put information together, she had very important skills and so, we approached her and told her that she can do an internship with us but we asked her if she was prepared to take on this challenge.”
The work started the first week in June and its designer, Idalia Machuca, an intern currently studying in Canada, says there are there are two main components to the website – the modules and the supplementary material.
IDALIA MACHUCA
“The modules are the actual crash courses and the supplementary materials are stuff like class activities, any kind of activity, aspiring minds, quizzes and the rest. Starting with the url, www.oceanateachbz.com and this is how the home page looks. What is really nice is that it is not difficult to navigate through the website; you have all the information and buttons on how to use the website and the goals and the reason why we did this project.”
The website includes a partner’s page for people who are concerned about the environment and one suggestion that was taken today is to include an interactive section where people can post their views on matters related to the environment.
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