Contact: Maridith Geuder
Three Mississippi State University units will be working with NASA on a major project to improve technology education.
Linking K-12 classrooms in the state with the Smithsonian Institution, developing a special World Wide Web site and assessing education needs are part of the university's contributions to NASA's new Space Commerce Initiative.
The units were selected recently to receive funding for support of the initiative's education component, said Melvin C. Ray, acting vice president for research. One goal will be "to develop instructional techniques that will produce skilled personnel needed for a high-tech economy," he added.
Campus units providing this expertise include the MSU Television Center, Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation and the Social Science Research Center.
The U.S. Department of Education, NASA Headquarters and the agency's education office at John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County are project sponsors. The overall goal is to make Mississippi a national leader in satisfying the growing demand for a workforce knowledgeable about remote sensing technology.
Remote sensing uses ground- or space-based sensors to look at the earth and use the resulting images to create maps. As NASA's lead center for commercial remote sensing, Stennis is working to create research and product development that will benefit Mississippi's economy.
"This is a major initiative and the grants reflect Mississippi State's leadership in education, research and service," Ray said.
Specifically,
--The TV center will use $180,000 to provide support for electronic classrooms linking Mississippi students with NASA researchers and those at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, said center director David Hutto.
--The engineering research center is receiving $68,000 to develop an information and educational web site related to commercial remote sensing.
--The SSRC's $100,000 grant will be used both to survey the nation's remote sensing industry and review educational opportunities currently in place in Mississippi. The social scientists then will develop an evaluation design to be used over the next five years, said center director Arthur G. Cosby.
The education efforts complement commercial remote sensing initiatives already under way at Mississippi State, said sociology professor Frank Howell, the project's campus coordinator. These include the development of precision farming techniques, identification of human impact on forest resources and expansion of research data on wildlife habitats.
"NASA is seeking to extend the commercial impact that space technology can have in the real world," Howell added.