Backyard Jungle

This used to be the web site Backyard Jungle, a sophisticated, free, kid-friendly web site where children around the world loaded photos, drawings, and descriptions about the natural surroundings where they live: their Backyard.  The children managed and mapped their own information, shared it with other kids who visited the web site, and visited and commented on the backyards of other kids as well.

Backyard Jungle was launched in Spring 2002 by Forum One Communications with the support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS.  The site was decommissioned in April 2009.  See some screen shots below of what Backyard Jungle offered.

Homepage

The newest reviewed and approved content entered by Backyard Jungle members appeared on the homepage the same day they were submitted. Outstanding content was selected and featured weekly by the Backyard Jungle editors.

Homepage

Member Homepages

After login to Backyard Jungle, the member was directed to their own personal home page. This was where they uploaded their own pictures and drawings, read messages from other members, kept tabs on votes and points, and bookmarked their favorite Backyard Jungle items. Points were accumulated for all sorts of activities on the site.

Member homepage


Add a New Discovery

After a Member had either uploaded or drawn a picture of a discovery, they would briefly describe the discovery to share what they had found with others.

Add a New Discovery

Backyards

Members could create up to five different backyard environments and position landscaping objects like trees, fences, buildings and paving. Once they had mapped their backyard environment they were able to publish their discoveries into the yard. This was one of the most interactive and fun features of the site and was very popular with the kids!

Member backyard