The UM project members have signed a memorandum of understanding to create a Lewis and Clark Data Consortium with the National Park Service’s Midwest Regional Office, United States Geological Survey’s Mid-continent Mapping Center and the University of Idaho in Moscow.

Alex Philp, EOS Education Project assistant director, said the purpose of the consortium is to create geographic information system data sets, multimedia, imagery and more for study of Lewis and Clark. Information generated by the consortium will support a variety of national public and private projects about the Corps of Discovery.

The group will support the study of the geographical, historical, cultural and environmental change that has occurred since Lewis and Clark’s epic trek. The EOS Education Project will use spatial images gathered by NASA’s recently launched Terra satellite, a flagship of the space agency’s Earth Observing System, to give an in-depth analysis of this aspect of U.S. history.

Philp says joining the consortium should help his department in its efforts to educate teachers and students about using advanced Earth science data.