Title of Jean-Michel Cousteau’s World Cities Under the Sea Vol. 1: Coral Reefs

We Don’t All Live In A Yellow Submarine….

A Review of Jean-Michel Cousteau’s World Cities Under the Sea Vol. 1: Coral Reefs

Rich Cunningham

Growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, there was a very popular television show called “Sea Hunt”, starring Lloyd Bridges. It was a story of a man who made a living scuba diving, and the adventures that he encountered earning a living. What made this show exciting was the beautiful undersea photography, even in the black and white photography of this era. (Yes, there was a time when television was not in color, but that’s another story). In it’s own way, I am sure that this program influenced many a viewer in how fragile our environment is, and how it should be protected. This program that I will describe does the same, but in a different way.

This program, one of a series of programs that is sponsored and hosted by Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the world renowned Oceanographer Jacque Cousteau. I approach this type of program with a rather cynical attitude, because in environmental issues, I have discoverd that there is no middle ground, just extremes. I was afraid that this was one that would be a platform for how man is destroying the environment, killing all the whales, etc. I was surprised that is was not like that at all.

This is an educational experience that can be enjoyed by computer users of all ages. It is a full color, multimedia journey through the undersea world. This volume concentrates on the coral reefs, and how they exist in the circle of life that is the planet Earth. There are more titles to follow in this series, but none were mentioned in the accompanying literature. About this title, Jean-Michel Cousteau explains “The … coral reefs help us understand how to preserve our own world for future generations. (This program) captures the wonder and spectacle of a reef, yet it also provides clues to how we can live better in our environment”.

This program is, as I mentioned before, a multimedia journey under the sea. Your mode of transportation is a “high-tech, virtual submarine” that will act as your vehicle to visit 7 different laboratories, each with a different ecological theme. Once there, after going through docking and exiting the airlock, you use all the current multimedia tools to explore the lab you are at. This is accomplished by using sound, graphics, videos and highly detailed photographs. The photograhs featured are alone worth the purchase price. The 7 labs you explore are as follows:

• ENERGY FLOWS: how sunlight acts as a fuel;

CYCLES: life cylces of the residents are explored, and how matter is used and recycled;

LIVING COMMUNITIES: interaction among the residents of this world;

BIODIVERSITY: like the real world, why there are so many different residents;

ADAPTIONS: how residents survive and adapt to the reefs;

CHANGE AND EVOLUTION: how evolution and ecology balance each other;

CONNECTIONS: how life on the reef is interconnected, and how it extends to the human world.

One can spend hours actually learning something from these 7 areas, and not even knowing that they are learning. That is what I found very enjoyable about this program. It was very broad in the information it presented, but very specific in the details of that information. It makes it points by presenting the information, and allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions. It doesn’t get on the liberal-stereotype of save our environment bandwagon, but it makes it’s point in a much more subtle way.

The included information in the CD is very small in size, but includes everything to get the program installed and running, with very little hassle. There is also a section on how to use the various interfaces, but the program is very easy and intuitive to use, so you can do what I did, and totally ignore it. There is an option that allows you to run from the CD or install it on the hard drive. Installing it from the hard drive helps speed up the chaning of the scenes, but really doesn’t help in the multimedia applications. Installation was flawless under Windows 95, and the program did not hang or stall once during testing, and believe me I tried to. There is also a troubleshooting section that is not too detailed, but should give a user a direction to go in if the program doen’t function.

Overall, this is an above average educational product for the area that it covers. It combines all the multimedia aspects one expects from a computer, and does it very well. The only negative I can mention is that it would be very nice to have more video clips, but the slide show presentations make up for it. This would be a nice addition to any library of educational software.

School House Scorecard

Product:	Jean-Michel Cousteau’s World Cities Under the Sea Vol. 1: Coral Reefs
Company:	Enteractive Inc. 110 West 40th Street NY NY 10018 Phone: 1-800-591-6100

Cost:

Not Available, other similiar titles from this publisher range in the $49.95 price range.

IBM PC or compatible; 486SX-33 or faster microprocessor; 8 meg of ram; 5.4 meg available HD space; SVGA display (640×480x256 colors minimum); MPC2 compliant CD ROM drive (2x); Windows 3.1 or later (fully Windows 95 compatible); Windows supported sound card; mouse
(No Macintosh version available)