UM center shares NASA data with
state schools, resource managers
UM forestry Professor Steve Running and his staff have designed software for NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite, a $7 billion instrument that will monitor ecosystems from space. But their work won't end after this summer's launch.

The EOS Natural Resource Training Center was started at UM Feb. 1 to meet the challenges of teaching natural resource managers and educators about NASA's newest remote sensing applications.

Several UM agencies will work with the training center to disseminate information gathered by the EOS satellite after the launch. Within UM's School of Forestry, for example, the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, along with the Bolle Center for People and Forests, will work to acquire, process and present EOS data in a relevant and meaningful manner to natural resource managers.

George Bailey and his staff at the Northern Rockies Sky School, located in the School of Education, will plan professional teacher training and teacher in-service training to begin demonstrating the concepts of remote sensing, along with bringing basic Global Information System applications into classrooms.

To address the needs of a large and diverse user group, the EOS International Training Center will use the skills and resources of faculty and staff in UM's schools of forestry and education, as well as those of peers at universities in Alaska, Idaho and Missouri. This coordinated effort will allow the schools to meet the diverse needs of national resource managers and the K-12 educational community.

Objectives of the project include training natural resource land managers to find, acquire, analyze and interpret EOS data to enhance the utility of EOS in land management; identifying, developing and disseminating EOS-related curricula for K-12 education; and providing professional development for high school and elementary teachers.

U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns was instrumental in garnering funding for the training center - $10.5 million over the next three years. Senators in Alaska, Idaho, Missouri and Colorado also helped get money for the project, since universities and schools in those states will partner with the UM training center. Other partners are Region One of the U.S. Forest Service and the Intermountain Fire Sciences Lab at the Rocky Mountain Research Station.

More information about the project will be available at http://www.umt.edu/eostrainingcenter when that Web site goes online.

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