3.2 NeMO'99 Website and Public Outreach - Nicole Nasby, Greg Pillette, Andra Bobbitt http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/eoi/nemo/

The goal was to create an educational web site that would be for use by students and teachers, primarily at the secondary level. The web site offered daily updates on the cruise and allowed interested individuals to follow the progress of the scientific expedition at Axial Volcano. The site was set up to provide daily updates that included a scientific report on the latest activity. There was also a weekly science summary written by the Chief Scientist. The web site included a daily personal perspective section that highlighted an individual from the scientific party of ship's crew, and a daily log written by the "teacher at sea" Greg Pillette. The last component was an interactive question and answer section so that the public could interact directly with the scientific staff.

Each of these sections was coordinated by Nicole Nasby and relevant digital images were included. They were sent from the ship to HMSC and were added to the web site on a daily bases by Andra Bobbitt in Newport. This material was then presented to the general public at HMSC, each day, by the teacher on shore, Steve Babcock. Feedback and question from the public were sent to the ship to be answered by the scientific staff.

We have received positive feedback from the web site maintained this year as well as the one from NeMO '98. We have heard from teachers who have used last year's site in a classroom situation. Unfortunately classes are not in session at this time, so there is little feedback from teachers and students on the NeMO '99 site at this point, but we did get several questions posted to the web site indicating a positive reaction. As with last year, many of these questions were from family members of science and ROPOS personal.