Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project. Inc. (ORWW) is an educational, nonprofit 501 c(3) corporation based in Philomath, Oregon since December 1996. ORWW is funded by private businesses, landowners, individuals, associations, and foundations with an interest in the long-term use and scientific management of Oregon's natural and cultural resources. The goals and objectives of ORWW, a brief organizational history, and a list of current board members can be found at www.ORWW.org/Mission.htm.

Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project, Inc. shows students how to use Internet communications and scientific methodology to help manage Oregon's natural and cultural resources. Students are encouraged to use computer technology, historical documentation, scientific reasoning, community outreach, environmental enhancement projects, and effective long-term monitoring strategies to help make decisions which affect Oregon's quality of life.

Project Websites: 1996-2006. ORWW websites have been largely designed and built by Oregon schoolchildren and adults: from Siletz School 2nd Grade students to Oregon State University graduate students; from 1996 until the present time. An estimated 80% of the website's content is student projects that have been continuosly online since they were created. Most of the work these first 10 years has been completed by Benton, Harney, Lincoln, and Multnomah county high school and college students and their teachers, with the help of ORWW workshops, field trips, lectures, mentoring programs, teacher training, and other technical assistance. These projects are designed as works in progress that are intended to be updated and improved from time to time by future students, teachers, and website administrators. By June 2006, more than 150,000 visitors a year were using ORWW websites' files, at a steady rate of 250 to 550 visitors a day, seven days a week. Visitors in the last year downloaded between three and five gigobytes (GB) of files a month, totaling more than 45 GB a year of shared educational files regarding Oregon's natural and cultural resources. Many visitors arrived daily by following Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines via thousands of keywords regarding Oregon's schools, rivers, forests, farms, history, wildlife, and other environmental resources. Others are regular users, such as teachers, student project participants, sponsors, and people with an interest in learning more about Oregon via the Internet. All are benficiaries of the fine design and workmanship of hundreds of Oregon students and teachers.

	PEAS Project (Philomath, Eddyville, Alsea, and Siletz Environmental Education Project ) demonstrated the usefulness of Internet communications for studying local environmental science projects in five rural Oregon schools.	Detailed Information 1996
	Classroom on the Siletz River Day became a popular annual event, linking Siletz School, local businesses, agencies, landowners, families, teachers, and members of the Siletz Tribe along the river and on the Internet.	Detailed Information 1997
	The Willamette River Steelhead Project provides a framework for local students to help study, evaluate, monitor, and enhance Multnomah County's anadromous fish populations and river water quality.	Detailed Information 1998
	The Oregon Lynx website is a popular searchable database of useful links and information specific to Oregon Schools, River Basins, Libraries, Museums, Media, Governments, Landowners, and Special Interests. Google did it better and this site remains to be completed. The School, River, and Media data remain among the most used portions of the ORWW website, but the other five sets need finishing.	Detailed Information 1999
	The 2001-2002 Oregon School Website Award competition recognized the State’s best School websites. Certificates and cash prizes were awarded to top schools for developing winning websites, with particular emphasis on design, environmental sciences content, and public outreach.	Detailed Information 2001
	The Harney County Cattle Grazing Study showcases student reports on the benefits and effects of cattle grazing in Harney County. The website is designed to share student findings for purposes of peer review, public education, and local resources management.	Detailed Information 2001
	Benton County Swimming Holes is a Philomath HS senior science project by Sharon Sternadel. This site shows appearance, location, and water quality of community swimming holes on the Long Tom, Luckiamute, Marys, and Alsea rivers in Benton County.	Detailed Information 2002
	The Bald Hill website was created to record seasonal changes in native plant populations over the course of a year in a Willamette Valley public park. The Native Plants Tour remains one of our most visited and downloaded sites.	2003
	ORWW designed and hosted the first Marys Peak Interpretive Center (MPIC) website as a public outreach and digital archive service for their initial summer science lecture series. "Ryan's Snakes" remains a popular video clip and is often downloaded several times a month.	Detailed Information 2004
	The B&B Complex website was constructed for several purposes, including immediate public outreach, systematic documentation of landscape-scale disturbance patterns, and long-term public monitoring framework.	Detailed Information 2004
	Oregon Experts was created as an index to better locate video clips, reports, and other online ORWW files that have been created as a result of student projects. These files feature the skills, thoughts, and observations of many influential and knowledgeable Oregon citizens.	2004
	The Brandis Oaks Savannah Restoration website was created by two Crescent Valley HS students from a formal oak restoration plan. It is intended to guide and archive student research findings for this Benton County project.	Detailed Information 2005
	The Babyfoot Lake website was created in response to a logging error widely reported in local and national media in August 2005. Its purpose is to establish a long-term monitoring and assessment project for local HS and CC students.	Detailed Information 2005
	The 2005 Deer Creek Fire near Selma, Oregon was quickly contained and suppressed by rapid firefighter response and by a change in local weather conditions. What is the long-term effect of wildfire suppression?	2005
	The Oregon Wildfires website was created as an index to begin consolidating educational topical event websites around the State, including B&B Complex, Biscuit, and Deer Creek wildfires of the early 21st century.	2005
	The Kalapuya-Amin ("Land of the Kalapuya") website is devoted to a three-day symposium regarding the land management and resource use technologies of Kalapuya people in the Willamette Valley, Oregon in 1450 and in 1750.	Detailed Information 2006

Early Project Highlights: First Five Years (1996 - 2001). ORWW websites have been continually online since the first PEAS Project files were uploaded in January 1997. At the end of the school year the PEAS Project Award ceremony was broadcast live via the Internet from Philomath MS gymnasium; several years in advance of Bill Gates' subsequent, more famous, live Internet broadcast. Local and statewide media and national politicians recognized the value of this emerging concept and capability: using statewide urban-rural Internet communication and computer technology networks to efficiently conduct scientific peer review, archive student findings and other data, publicly monitor long-term environmental enhancement projects, and document educational processes over space and time. Now it was possible to learn and teach about Oregon's natural and cultural resources from a common source at any time or place, so long as Internet communications were available. The following links are connected to important milestones and highlights of ORWW's first years of existence.

	ORWW projects have been featured in news articles (Feb., 1997), supported by both State Senators (1997-1998), and featured on statewide television news (KATU: May 6, 1999).
	PEAS Project Survey of Rural School Internet Connectivity, 1996-1997. Two of the three PEAS Pilot newsletters are available online, including this tabular summary of the first PEAS computers and their Internet capabilities (January 31, 1997).
	Eddyville High School Homepage Eddyville HS was an original PEAS Project participant. This site features the first student designed and built ORWW webpage (February 12, 1997).
	Salmon Cycle - Ms. Henderson's Siletz GS 2nd Graders' completed the first student ORWW web report, and received international guestbook visits (May 7, 1998).
	1939 Indexed Aerial Photos of the Siletz River Basin Scanning, linking, and online placement of historical photos by Eddyville HS Senior, Erik Badzinski (August 27, 1998).
	Alsi Indians - Alsea HS Kingfisher #13 report on local precontact and early historical people of the Alsea River basin. First online version of Kingfisher, by Alsea HS Junior.
	(WRI) Restoration Program Inventory Report to Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber includes detailed information on ORWW and its projects, including goals, budgets, objectives, sponsorship demographics, etc. (June, 2000 update).
	Chinook Salmon Release North Portland students from several local schools raised salmon fry from eggs, then released the fish into the Willamette River (January 26, 2001).
	Oregon School Website Awards ORWW awarded certificates to more than 20 of the best 2001-2002 Oregon school websites, and awarded more than $5,000 in cash prizes to winning schools. Awards were for setting statewide standards in a new medium (June 10, 2002).

© 1996 - 2007 - Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project, Inc. & NW Maps Co.