Nature of America - David's Final Project

Strategy

• Name of the site: “Nature of America”
• Purpose and goals of the site: The site will showcase the flora and fauna of different ecosystems in the United States, with the “Nature of America” stamp series as a framework. The main focus of the site will be the ecosystems and plants and animals features, but the art of the stamps will also be on display. The “Nature of America” stamp series contains twelve different stamp sets that were issued between 1999 and 2010. For each of the stamps, around twenty plants or animals are highlighted.
• Audiences
  • Primary audience: Lay-persons curious about different plants and animals in different ecosystems in the United States. The site is not intended for scientific or advanced information about the plants and animals. Though the site will use the “Nature of America” stamp series, it is not designed for the serious stamp collector.
  • Secondary audience: K-8 students interested in exploring the different plants and animals in different parts of the United States

Scope

Ideas for content/function for site:

• Stamp sheets issued:
  Sonoran Desert, Pacific Coast Rain Forest, Great Plains Prairie, Longleaf Pine Forest, Arctic Tundra, Pacific Coral Reef, Northeast Deciduous Forest, Southern Florida Wetland, Alpine Tundra, Great Lakes Dunes, Kelp Forest, Hawaiian Rain Forest
• For each of the 12 stamp sheets issued:
  • Image of the pane, front and back
  • List of animals/plants
    • Scientific and common name
    • Photo of the animal/plant
    • Additional information or link to entry in eol.org (Encyclopedia of Life)
• About the stamp series; about the artist
• Interactive (JavaScript) ideas
  • Slideshows of the stamp pane images; animals/plants within each pane.
  • Map that shows the post office/place where each stamp sheet was first issued, as this maps to the area of the country where you can expect to find the ecosystem featured.
• Resources: USPS archives for when stamps were issued; eol.org (encyclopedia of life); Pixabay and other sites with images covered under creative commons.

For my project, I will focus on the home page, a page for the “Great Plains Prairie,” and one page that has a map showing where the first issue came from.

Structure

This site will be pretty “flat” in structure, as the main content pages will be for each of the 12 different stamp sheets; plus a map and an ‘about’ page. So three “areas” of the site as shown in the structure, but I plan on having the home page show all the stamps as well as link to the about and map pages.