IRA Newsletter Literacy Website #5

Lolita S. Torres

ED 638-40 Fall Intersession

Dr. M. Rivera

IRA Newsletter Project Literacy Websites #5

Young Ocean Explorers, YOE (https://www.youngoceanexplorers.com) is a public, free educational website dedicated to inspiring and teaching children about the ocean. They are based in New Zealand and is run by a father and daughter, Steve and Riley Hathaway. Their main content is a video series called “Love our Ocean” which explores topics like dolphins, whales, fish, pollution, and marine preservation. Users may create an account to save their favorite videos and the site has features making it easy to integrate the videos into their lesson plan.

The video series is split into 6 categories: turtle, dolphin, shark, fish, human, and sea bottom. Each of these categories has videos exploring their related subtopics such as habitats, diet, and interactions. There are polls that ask students’ opinion about different ocean topics and quizzes that test the students’ knowledge. The quizzes and polls serve to keep the students engaged and interested in the content. Users may press the “like” button and save their favorite videos for easy repeated viewing. The website also has an index and dictionary for easy searching and a map that shows the locations of the pictures or videos they took. The pictures greatly enhance the learning experience as children feel immersed in the marine environment and encourages them to find out more about the ocean.

            Overall, it has endless literacy ideas about the beauty and fascination of the ocean and its inhabitants alive and the importance of enjoying and caring for our ocean. Moreover, the website is also great for use in classrooms. It has a tool for teachers to create a class and have students log in to view the videos. There are public assignments for anyone wanting to learn specific topics. The website has a kid-friendly, colorful layout that is easy to use. Lastly, this website is a fun, interactive way for students, especially the younger ones, to learn about ocean literacy.