VirtuelGalathea 3. Årsrapport 2008

VirtuelGalathea3 is a project providing research-based educational material to upper secondary schools using input from the Galathea 3 expedition. The Galathea expedition took place from 11th August 2006 to 25th April 2007 (8 months). The ship ‘Vædderen’ sailed from Copenhagen and around the globe. Most of the 50 scientific projects took place on board, however several projects took place on land in various countries.

In VirtuelGalathea3 the scientists from Galathea cooperate with skilled teachers in order to provide educational material across several disciplines with focus on the physical sciences. The homepage www.virtuelgalathea3.dk contains the material which includes at present 23 new projects from VirtuelGalathea3 developed in 2007-2008, and 40 projects from the Satellite Eye project developed during 2006-2008.

There are online near-real-time satellite images of several parameters on the homepage. Furthermore more than 50 short videos are available, hundreds of photos from the expedition and profiles of many participants. The web-page was officially opened 24th October 2008 by the minister of education Bertel Haarder.

After eight weeks the visits by unique users was over 3.800 and now (as of 17th February 2009) over 7.400 unique users have visited. There is an average of 1.500 users per months. From the typical weekly cycle with maximum number of visits during working days and minimum on Saturdays, the homepage obviously is used mainly in schools.

Marketing effects are mainly through electronic media as well as educational training courses for teachers.