The Great Turtle Race: Digital Media Cartoon Critter Fun

turtle-race.gifWhat’s seven feet long, 2000 pounds and delightfully digital? A gigantotherm. Find out more following The Great Turtle Race, a whimsical two week webevent that gives kids a hands-on way to “cheer on their animated turtle” and get a peek at the migration of these 65 million year old graceful beauties.

Tap into digital media and marketing at its most sublime as real life turtle movements are updated every 10 minutes and children root for their animated leatherbacks, swimming their way from their nesting sites on Playa Grande beach in Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands.

My 9-year old goddaughter Lara has championed this cause, following it daily and citing factoids out the wazoo from the animated “on the brink” section. Kids “meet the turtles,” pick their fave for FREE, find out about tagging and pick up widgets for blogs and social media sites as the need to protect the “critter highway” of the Pacific becomes readily apparent.

They stay tuned to the digital frenzy via edutainment e-mail pings like this: “Propelling forward with their front limbs and steering with their back ones, the distance swimmers headed for the finish. Turtleocity stuck close to Purple Lightning, drafting her newfound friend…Beak to beak and barreling towards the finish line’…You get the drift.

Who’s behind the sponsorship and products? Yahoo’s in the lead, along with Plantronics and others, once again proving corporate social responsibility can coexist with nonprofit enterprise, including The Leatherback Trust, Tagging of Pacific Predators, Conservation International and Costa Rica‘s Ministry of Environment and Energy.

It’s a wonderful media riff on The Amazing Race and a fun way to plunge into new seas of wonder…Refreshing to see it’s not commercialized into oblivion with a turtle-talking plushie from Disney’s Finding Nemo too.

This is the real thing, well worth supporting so get onboard before the finish line, as they’re on Day Nine right now! As Crush would say, “Awesome, dude.”

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