About the RoadKill Project

The RoadKill project started several years ago as part of a National Science Foundation teacher enhancement grant called EnviroNet, awarded to Simmons College in Boston. Brewster Bartlett, also known as Dr.Splatt, began the idea of monitoring dead animals along the roadway as he traveled back and forth from his school. He thought it would make a good project for students to not only learn the different kinds of animals that are found along the roadways but also to keep in touch with each other via the Internet.

When the project was first conceived in 1992 there was no access to the web and the only means of keeping in touch and sending along various data was via email messages that were posted to a bulletin board. As the web became available the project went through a series of modifications and changes for collection, submittal and retrieval of data and as a result communication between students and schools was greatly enhanced.

Over the past few years the RoadKill project lost its technical support and the submission of data to an online database was no longer possible. Many classrooms still participated but were finding it hard to "see" the bigger picture not having access to data from others.

We are happy to announce that the project has now moved to the CommunityNet server of EduTel Communications Inc. Once again it will have the needed support of online databases and of course updated pages. The project offers a virtual Post Office where students will be able to submit their work for sample cards that are available for sending. The project also includes a moderated interactive Message Board system for all that visit the site.

We hope the revised project will be useful to all that participate and please let us know if we can improve upon any of the site's features.

Thanks, enjoy the project and we'll see you on the highways! 

PS. You can listen to Dr.Splatt talk about the history of the RoadKill project with this Real Player link over to New Hampshire Public Radio. You will need RealPlayer software for listening to the broadcast. You can download it by clicking here!