Press Releases
Sydney school first to log on to new educational website
Sydney, Australia - December 10, 2001 - Following its sponsorship
of a touring National Geographic Society exhibition, FedEx, the
world's largest express transportation company, has launched an
educational website that opens the world of logistics to primary
school children.
FedEx's sponsorship involves shipping a 12 metre replica of a 110
million-year-old crocodile, known as SuperCroc, around the Asia
Pacific region. The fossilised crocodile remains were found in the
Sahara by Dr Paul Sereno from the National Geographic Society.
The educational site,
www.fedexsupercroc.com, contains teacher and student resources
on the discovery and excavation of SuperCroc as well as detailed
information on present day crocodiles in the Asia Pacific region.
There are also fun class activities including a crossword, a word
hunt, and stories and poems about crocodiles.
The site also opens the world of transportation to these youngsters
with information on the history of transportation such as the Silk
Road, transportation today, and the different methods of transporting
some common goods.
There is even a quick run-down on some of the more common exports
from many Asia Pacific countries.
The SuperCroc project has been a major commitment by FedEx, shipping
the exhibition to locations in Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala
Lumpur and Taipei. SuperCroc has been constructed in six portions,
each fitting neatly into one of FedEx's standard containers. The
giant SuperCroc model is made of clay, polyester resin and fibreglass,
and took 18 weeks to complete. There is 2041 kg of clay alone used
in the model.
Whilst that is heavy enough, it is nowhere near the 9,000 kg that
the original SuperCroc is estimated to have weighed.
The site also has been a major commitment, involving around six
weeks of solid work in researching and sourcing relevant written
and visual content. Being a site specifically for schools, special
considerations had to be taken into account including issues of
anonymity of children posting assignments to the site and general
content filtering. Since the site will also be used by school children
in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia, the information and
the activities had to be appropriate to all countries and cultures.
"The site will be used for a variety of activities, including teachers
and children being able to swap news items and assignments across
the region," said Mr Don Hardy, managing director for Australia
and New Zealand.
"To allow this to happen we consulted with relevant educational
authorities and regulatory bodies to ensure that what we were developing
was both desirable and safe."
The site was officially opened last week when Mt Kuring-Gai Primary
School in Sydney's north logged on as the first official site visitor.
The launch was attended by educational representatives and was officiated
by the school's local member of the New South Wales Parliament,
Mr Stephen O'Doherty.
In launching the site, Mr O'Doherty congratulated FedEx on supplying
a depth of information and teaching resources on such a non-commercial
site. According to Mr O'Doherty, schools can only benefit by such
community partnerships, which enhance the level of resources available
to support the curriculum across the country. By supplying teaching
resources on the web, Mr O'Doherty believes that not only does it
make this information universally accessible, but opens the opportunity
for schools here to converse with other schools, especially those
in neighbouring regions.
This is not the first time that FedEx has been involved in community
projects with schools. "FedEx has a proud history of assisting schools,
especially in the Asia Pacific region," said Mr Hardy. "In 1999
we actually built an entire school, FedEx Junior High School in
Chu La-Quang Nam."
The school was constructed by FedEx and opened in January 2000.
There are now 625 children aged six to nine years attending the
school.
FedEx Express, a $15 billion subsidiary of FedEx Corp., connects
areas that generate 90% of the world's gross domestic product in
24-48 hours with door-to-door, customs-cleared service. The company's
unmatched air route authorities and infrastructure make it the world's
largest express transportation company, providing fast, reliable
and time-definite transportation of more than 3.3 million items
to 211 countries each working day. FedEx employs approximately 149,000
employees and has more than 46,000 drop-off locations, 640 aircraft
and 49,000 vehicles in its integrated global network.
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