The SIMoN website serves many purposes for many different types of people. From educators to resource managers, the science community to the general public, this website provides information on the Cordell Bank, Gulf of Farallones, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries in context of resource monitoring. Various tips on using this website are provided below.

General Public
The general public can get many different types of information from the SIMoN website. Each habitat and issue of the Sanctuaries (found on the left hand navigation bar) has an overview page that supplies general information. This overview provides a good sense of the natural history and current issues of the section. The maps and graphs pages for each section provide more interesting information in a visual form.

The weather and tides page provides links to get current conditions in each sanctuary. In the Special Topics menu to the side, users can explore other topics of interest. For example, the sporadic events page describes interesting events that have happened in the Sanctuary over the past years. Regardless of what parts of the SIMoN website you spend your time in, you can be sure to leave with a better understanding of this amazing ecosystem.

The SIMoN Photo Library provides over 2,800 high-quality images of the places and marine life found in northern and central California. Each image comes with descriptive information from the actual photographer and is freely downloadable for non-commercial use.

Educators
Teachers and educators can find an abundance of interesting information on the SIMoN website. Each section has a links page that provides many links to educational websites with material on the marine sciences. Educators may also find the maps and graphs pages useful. Those interested in GIS data should try out the interactive maps link. This SIMoN dynamic mapping application allows users to create maps on the fly by selecting the layers of data, the spatial extent, and geographic location for each map. This feature is a great tool for teaching the importance of GIS data in marine sciences.

Educators will also benefit from the use of digital images found in the SIMoN Photo Library.

Resource Managers / Scientists
The SIMoN website provides up-to-date information on current monitoring projects that resource managers and scientists can benefit from. Not only can they learn the current results of Sanctuary monitoring efforts, managers and scientists can also learn who is doing that monitoring. This information is available on the Network Partners page (found in the Special Topics list) and is provided to help develop new partnerships between researchers and organizations.

Resource managers and scientists can also access existing SIMoN GIS data by using the interactive maps feature. As they dynamically create maps, managers and scientists can find answers to monitoring questions using this visual medium.