Press Releases

Two-man Crew Sails from New York to Australia
to Bring Ocean Adventure to the Classroom
sitesALIVE! Founder to Challenge 19^th Century Clipper Ship’s 14,000-mile Record

BOSTON, MA: August 1, 2001—sitesALIVE! will kick off its newest Internet educational program: Ocean Challenge Live! – New York to Melbourne at the September 16 launch of Great American II as it sets sail on a record-breaking voyage from New York’s Chelsea Piers to Melbourne, Australia. Through the power of technology, teachers and students around the world will be able to follow two modern-day adventurers as they sail halfway around the world in a race with maritime history.

Skipper Rich Wilson, founder of sitesALIVE! and co-skipper Bill Biewenga will embark from New York bound for Melbourne, Australia, aboard the 53-foot trimaran Great American II. Their goal: to break a 14,000-mile sailing record set nearly a century and a half ago by the American clipper ship Mandarin during the Australian gold rush. Wilson and Biewenga hope to make their trip in 59 days. Their journey coincides with a national celebration of the 150^th anniversary of the Australian Gold Rush.

Students and classrooms all over the world will be able to participate in the Great American II adventure by subscribing to www.sitesalive.com. An online Teacher’s Guide will provide lesson plans focusing on disciplines such as history, science, language arts, and math. Also included will be topics on the environment, energy, nutrition and communications. This curriculum, coupled with the up-to-the-minute and live features of the website, allows students to virtually climb aboard Great American II.

The First Classroom Adventure

In 1993, Wilson and Biewenga set the sailing record from San Francisco to Boston by way of Cape Horn, breaking the 76 day, six hour, record set during the California Gold Rush by the great clipper ship Northern Light. The co-skippers were joined on this adventure by nearly 400,000 students who followed the journey through a nationwide newspaper series and the first interactive learning adventure produced by Prodigy.

The enthusiastic response of the students convinced Wilson, a former teacher, that classrooms all over the world could be exposed to real life learning adventures via the Internet. "Once you've hooked the kids with excitement, you can feed them with real learning content - math, science, nutrition, biology, astronomy, teamwork, perseverance, goal-setting, all of it, and they welcome all of it with enthusiasm," says Wilson. "This is the promise of the Internet fulfilled in the classroom."

Ocean Challenge Live! – New York to Melbourne will provide this excitement again as Wilson and Biewenga set out to challenge the record set in 1856 by Mandarin, which completed the voyage in 69 days, 14 hours. Mandarin was one of hundreds of vessels carrying fortune hunters to Australia when gold was discovered in the mid-19^th century. Each week the sitesalive.com website will feature:

• Essays and personal journals written from sea by Wilson and Biewenga
• A frequently updated map showing the boat’s progress
• A ship’s log radioed from Great American II
• Quizzes that test student reading comprehension
• Daily audio reports
• Tri-weekly Q & A
• Photos and video from sea

Ocean Challenge Live! – New York to Melbourne is the ninth program currently offered by sitesALIVE! Other programs, dealing with a wide range of subjects ideal for classroom study, are based in diverse locations around the globe, including Mexico, Australia, Central America, and the West Indies. Other 2001-2002 sitesALIVE! programs running concurrently include:

Rainforest Live! – Queensland, Australia Class Afloat Live! – Concordia sails the world Oceans Live! – Turks & Caicos Islands Costa Rica Live! – Costa Rica

Wetlands & Fisheries Live! – Mexico US History Live! – aboard Spirit of Massachusetts Islands Live! – Bahamas Math Live! – real math from all of our sites

About sitesALIVE!
sitesALIVE! is a K-12 Internet subscription site connecting students in classrooms with field school expeditions and learning adventures worldwide. sitesALIVE! is a registered trademark of Ocean Challenge, Inc., a Boston-based company providing teachers and students with a continual series of real-life educational adventures via the Internet. All sitesALIVE! programs meet National Curriculum Standards.