NASA's National Lewis and Clark Education Center Supplies Interactive Online Tools for Teachers
By Alex Philp

Over the course of NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration's) celebrated history, educational outreach programs have become increasingly important components of mission objectives. Part of NASA's strategic plan to carry the agency into the 21st Century states, "We involve the educational community in our endeavors to inspire America's students, create learning opportunities and enlighten inquisitive minds." With the successful launch of NASA's Terra satellite in December 1999, the first in a series of Earth Observing System (EOS) missions, NASA continues its commitment to educational outreach through the use of EOS mission imagery and related Earth system science data sets.
      To help achieve these outreach objectives, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center established The Earth Observing System Training Center at The University of Montana in the spring of 1998. The EOS Training Center has two primary programs and emphases: 1) The EOS Natural Resource Project works with various natural resource land management agencies, e.g., The National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Forest Services, to train resource managers in the utilization of EOS mission products to improve a variety of field-based, land management decision-making; 2) The EOS Education Project (http://eoscenter.com) plays a complimentary role in educating the K-12 education community in the utilization of EOS imagery and the necessary technologies to embrace NASA information.
      During the life of the EOS Education Project (EOSEP), two primary outreach strategies have been deployed. Utilizing a 40-station mobile computing lab, the EOS Project travels to a variety of regional and national conferences providing introductory training sessions in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a means for teachers to work with EOS imagery and related geospatial information. Working with private sector partners such as ESRI, LizardTech, ERDAS, Space Imaging, Classroom Connect and others, teachers are introduced to fundamental remote sensing concepts and ways in which imagery can be incorporated into a variety of environmental education curricula.
      The second outreach component involves the development of highly interactive, teacher-friendly Internet mechanisms. To achieve these objectives, EOSEP employs two leading technologies from Seattle-based LizardTech: MrSID for imagery, and DjVu for documents. EOSEP is using LizardTech's MrSID Image Server with MrSID encoding and viewing software inside the EOS Image Server to transmit very large remote sensing and other image-file types directly into classrooms. DjVu technology is used for historical image documents and letters produced during the Lewis and Clark expedition. EOSEP discovered that DjVu not only retains the clarity of the original scanned historical document, it also drastically reduces the file size far below JPEG or PDF file formats. LizardTech's MrSID and DjVu technologies are both Internet-ready and require nothing more on the teacher-client side than a Web browser. As free and versatile products, LizardTech's MrSID and DjVu viewers are assisting EOSEP in accomplishing its NASA objectives. When these image and document viewing tools are combined with the exploding number of MrSID and DjVu datasets, the global-education community has unprecedented means to overcome the financial, technological and content barriers to Earth science learning.
      In addition to the EOS Image Server and teacher-friendly Internet delivery methods, EOSEP recently launched its initial map services utilizing ESRI's new ArcIMS 3.0 software. The concept of distributed GIS and the newly created Geography Network provide an ideal technology for teachers interested in deploying GIS into their classroom. As a community increasingly asked to do more and more with less and less, K-12 teachers demand efficient and effective technologies that can quickly be embraced by themselves and their students. The EOS Map Services provides such a solution and provides unprecedented data connectivity for teachers around the world. The EOS Map Services combine remote sensing imagery and vector data in such a way as to promote the exploration of thematic topics that match curricular and pedagogical emphases in the modern classroom.
      The combination of LizardTech's imaging technologies and ESRI's map services has promoted the EOSEP into the national spotlight for innovative, cost-effective technology integration, data delivery and interactive, online instruction. As a result, the EOSEP has entered into an agreement with NASA's premier EOS outreach portal, Goddard's Earth Observatory (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/). EOSEP is working with its private sector partners to expand its outreach capabilities through the development of map and image services as a component of the Earth Observatory's "Experiments Room." In the future, the education community will be able to visit the Experiments Room and utilize these interactive tools to explore selective themes related to Earth's complex, interconnected systems: climate and vegetation feedback mechanisms, meteorological phenomena, human impacts upon landscape, atmospheric models, and a variety of other topical areas. The goal is to provide web-based, scalable means of communicating the essential cause-effect relationships at the core of ecosystem dynamics. Simultaneously, EOSEP will expand its online instruction capabilities to provide teachers with effective tutorials in the use of image, map, and data acquisition capabilities. These tutorials will be linked directly to Earth themes and will provide a simultaneous introduction to the technology and the curricular activities. This is in addition to EOSEP's existing distance learning programs related to GIS and more fundamental education technologies programs for teachers (http://umtonline.net).
      On the public side, EOSEP has developed working relationships with other NASA centers and federal parties to expand its capabilities to infuse schools with advanced technologies and Earth science content. At the core of these programs, NASA Ames Research Center's Aerospace Education Service Program (AESP) has been working closely with EOSEP to promote their annual Big Sky Education Technology Rendez-Vous, which has been held for the last two years at the program's headquarters at the University of Montana. In addition to the sponsorship of ESRI, LizardTech and other providers, NASA's AESP provides week-long science camps for students and workshops for teachers from around the Northern Rockies' region. Throughout the year, AESP conducts school-based in-service workshops for teachers that compliment the online outreach efforts of EOSEP. EOSEP has also been working closely with the U.S. Forest Service to assist with their conservation education outreach efforts. In a particular instance, EOSEP spearheaded an effort to link local Forest Service districts with community schools and establish landscape laboratories for hands-on, field-based research projects for students and teachers. This work combined involvement with the GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) Program (http://www.globe.gov) and the National Geographic Society's Geographic Alliance network, which actively pursues systemic improvement in geography education and literacy around the world.
      EOSEP also reaches out to other federal parties that are developing environmental education outreach efforts. Recently, the EOSEP training team traveled to Yosemite National Park in support of the Wildlink Program, which is working to team K-12 teachers with wilderness rangers to improve understanding of wilderness areas around the country.
      To date, EOSEP has developed data sets and instructional material related to the Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park in Montana and southern Alberta, the Yosemite National Park wilderness complex, the Katunski Zapovednik in the Altai Republic of southern Siberia and, most recently, Etosha National Park in the southwestern African country of Namibia. Closer to home, EOSEP has also developed a comprehensive education program related to the Lewis and Clark "Corps of Discovery" (1803-1806) and the widely anticipated commemoration of the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial (2003-2006). With the most linear miles of the Lewis and Clark trail route in the state of Montana, EOSEP realized that it had an unprecedented opportunity to combine NASA remote sensing objectives, regional and local geospatial data, and advanced classroom technologies around the national enthusiasm for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Through the combined support of its existing private and public partnerships, EOSEP was recently selected by the National Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council to house the new National Lewis and Clark Education Center (http://www.lewisandclarkeducationcenter.com/). University of Montana officials made the announcement during a Tuesday, May 30, news conference.
      Alex Philp, Assistant Director of the EOS Education Project, and recently named Director of the National Lewis and Clark Education Center, said the new center will train teachers to augment their Lewis and Clark instruction through the use of satellite imagery, multimedia productions, Internet delivery, improved curriculum development, geospatial data and much more. "Now that the National Lewis and Clark Education Center has been added to EOSEP," Philp said, "EOSEP will use a Lewis and Clark theme in all its endeavors for NASA."
      Philp said EOSEP became a leading candidate for the national center after it joined the Corps of Education Partners Program, an alliance of organizations dedicated to creating educational programs about Lewis and Clark's historic trek for the nation's K-12 educational community. The program members are EOSEP, the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory, the National Bicentennial Council, and the National Education Association.
      "Having the National Lewis and Clark Education Center at UM will allow us to participate more fully in the Corps of Education Partners Program," Philp said.
      EOSEP has also created and manages the Lewis and Clark Data Consortium, which is composed of various institutions and agencies working to gather data and cooperatively develop digital and multimedia resources for several Lewis and Clark programs. To date, the consortium and program supporters have provided $172,000 in goods and services to EOSEP to make the project's educational programs successful. U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, and U.S. Rep. Rick Hill attended the news conference, demonstrating bipartisan support for the establishment of the national center at UM. Representatives from various public land management, working to preserve the Lewis and Clark Trail and interpret its significance for the American public agencies, also attended the press conference and continue to work collaboratively with EOSEP and Education Center.
      "This new center will be an unprecedented educational opportunity for teachers and students," Philp said. "We look forward to assisting all parties in the development of interdisciplinary educational programs related to the Lewis and Clark experience and America's landscape legacy."
      In the upcoming months, the Earth Observing System Education Project and the National Lewis and Clark Education Center invite other interested parties to become involved in these national education programs related to Earth system science and the rediscovery of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Such NASA sponsored education projects were founded on the belief that, by working together, more can be accomplished than through individual effort alone.

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