Happy Independence Day Everyone!
NASA recently hosted a planning meeting for the Space Grant/Land Grant
Geospatial Extension Program. As you may know, this is the program that was
initiated recently by NASA's Space Grant Division and NASA's Office of
Earth Science at three pilot locations -- Utah State University, the
University of Arizona, and Mississippi State University. Each university
has hired an extension specialist to facilitate the application of remote
sensing technologies to address natural resource management and production
agriculture problems. Representing Arizona at the meeting were: Mike
Drake, Arizona Space Grant Consortium Director; Susan Brew, Arizona Space
Grant Program Coordinator; Barron Orr, Geospatial Extension Specialist,
and myself. Representing USDA and NASA were: Chuck Laughlin,
Administrator of USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and
Extension Service; Mike Thomas, Director, NASA Applications,
Commercialization and Education; Alex Tuyahov, Manager, NASA Earth Science
Applications Research, Office of Earth Science.
Each of the three pilots is designed, managed and funded somewhat
differently, providing NASA and USDA a foundation of experience from which
a national program can be designed. The framework for that program is
detailed below to provide you with an idea of the objectives and strategy
we have for the Arizona pilot. The national-scale objective of the program
is to establish a nation-wide geospatial technology delivery system by
linking: NASA Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) (Earth science results, data,
and technology); NASA Space Grant (SG) (Earth and space science research,
education, and outreach network); USDA and Land Grant Cooperative Extension
(LG) (county-based technology transfer network)
This is to be achieved by maximizing impact through sustained participation
by the states and encouraging focus on topics that are of high significance
within the state or region. The program will also seek to optimize
investment on a state-by-state basis by building on existing or emerging
commitments to geospatial technology, and leveraging existing resources of
all participants (ESE, SG, LG). The role of extension specialist includes
a) assessing state geospatial technology needs and assets, conducting pilot
applications projects, serving as an information link between ESE, SG, and
LG locally and nationally, providing in-service training to agents and
clients, and developing K-12 curriculum materials.
For more specific program information, contact Barron Orr at 621-8586, or
e-mail at barron@cals.arizona.edu.