Mariners Museum

Purpose: Supporting Lifelong Learning The Mariners' Museum will upgrade its Age of Exploration online educational resource and integrate it with the exhibition of the same name and with the museum's library and archives. Created in 1996 to complement Virginia's Standards of Learning for Public Schools, the Web site has far exceeded its projected use by teachers and students throughout the world. By expanding the Web Site's limited content to reflect recent scholarship and redesigning its obsolete navigational structure, the museum will create a more valuable online resource for teachers, students, families, scholars, researchers, and lifelong learners. In phase 1, the project team will work with a Web design firm to develop a more user-friendly navigation structure and page layout, while education staff will upgrade the content and imagery on the site to reflect current historical research. The new Web site will go live in the summer of 2005, in time for the start of the school year. In phase 2, education staff will continue to add content and interactive components to the Web site, while exhibition staff will install two touch-screen kiosks in the museum's Age of Exploration gallery to link gallery visitors to the Web site, offering them a far richer experience.