Nevada City, CA – Velocity7, Nevada City’s leading marketing communications agency, has launched joidesresolution.org, a major new educational initiative of the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for Ocean Leadership. The website tells the story of the JOIDES Resolution, a former oil exploration ship now in use as one of the world’s premier tools for scientific climate research. The JOIDES Resolution—or JR, as it is known on board—drills core samples from the ocean floor. Scientists use these cores to study the history of Earth’s climate.

The new website is deeply interactive and integrated with top social networking tools. The site provides teachers with a plethora of classroom resources and activities, and appeals to kids with videos and games. Users can communicate with scientists on board and read frequent updates from scientist and crew member bloggers. Visitors can sign up to receive blog feeds in their RSS reader, or for a monthly email newsletter also designed by Velocity7. In the fall, the Consortium for Ocean Leadership will sponsor two national contests for students through the website. The contests were designed and planned by Velocity7.

“We think we took this site to a whole other level with the integration of social networking tools.” states Velocity7 CEO, Robert Trent. “A teacher might read an interesting blog entry with an embedded YouTube video, and then share that video directly with her teaching buddies on Facebook and Twitter. All that functionality is just a couple of clicks away”

The launch of the website coincides with the relaunch of the ship itself. The JR went to sea on March 5, 2009, after over two years of retrofits to the ship and its science facilities. The ship is operated by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, a nonprofit organization representing 95 public and private ocean research education institutions, aquaria and industry. Acting of behalf of these leading institutions, Ocean Leadership works to advance research, education and sound ocean policy.