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Students at Northwood High School got a taste of celebrity last week as Philippe Cousteau, the grandson of legendary sea-explorer Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau and an Animal Planet and Discovery Channel TV star, visited a science class to promote the launch of a new environmentally-friendly teen social networking site.

The Web site, www.planet-connect.org, was designed by teens for teens as a resource to communicate and learn about the environment, said Karen Heys, the senior director of education for the nonprofit D.C.-based National Environmental Education Foundation.

NEEF partnered with The Weather Channel and Cousteau to sponsor the site. On it, youth can create profiles, "friend" each other, post articles of interest and create groups—all under a theme of environmental stewardship and education, Heys said.

It's a lot like Facebook or MySpace, two other popular social networking sites, said Northwood senior Zaida Dana as she browsed through the site on its opening day last week.

"You can talk to people and see what they're interested in," she said.

Cousteau said he's hoping teens start talking about ways to take care of and improve the environment.

It's imperative to raise their interest level in preserving it because the earth will one day depend on their stewardship, the ocean explorer and environmental activist said.

"It's this generation that's going to decide what to do with our oceans," he said.

Cousteau and Heys said they think the site will be successful in engaging teens because it communicates with them in their language—by networking over the Internet.

"Direct-mail campaigns don't work anymore," Cousteau said. "We need to be using this technology."

Erol Miller, a science teacher at Northwood who worked with NEEF to bring Cousteau to the school, said the strength of the site is its networking capabilities.

It gets students interacting and talking about the environment—an idea that's picking up steam in today's classes, he said.

"Ten years ago, environmental science was not in the forefront, it wasn't part of the mainstream consciousness," Miller said. "But now it really is."

The content on the site will be user-driven, Heys said. For example, a student can post an article about an environmental issue, tag it under the appropriate subject lines (such as biodiversity, ecology or fisheries) and then start a comment period on it.

But Heys said the site goes beyond the everyday discussion of environmental issues. There's also information about careers and higher education opportunities in the "green" field, which she said is expanding rapidly.

"If students don't know what green jobs are or how to get them, they may miss out on these opportunities," she said.

Next to her, junior Delmy Gutierrez and her classmate were already creating their profiles on the site, posting thumbnail size photos and listing their interests.

"It's cool, it's like MySpace," Gutierrez said.