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CSRC OUTREACH AND EDUCATION PROGRAMS


The Complex Systems Research Center has developed a series of regional and national K-12 outreach programs, as well as informal outreach efforts aimed at the general public. In addition, CSRC offers a number of college-level educational programs designed to introduce undergraduate and graduate students to applications of geospatial technologies (GIS, GPS, and remote sensing) to a wide range of scientific disciplines (hydrology, ecology, physiology, etc.). The outreach activities include the Forest Watch program, the environmental module of Project SMART, Measuring Vegetation Health, The New England Regional Assessment, and others. The college-level programs include the undergraduate Research and Discover and selected courses such as Earth Systems Science and Inquiry-based Remote Sensing, as well as graduate-level courses and research training programs offered by the CSRC faculty.

Outreach Programs:

Forest Watch - A New England-wide environmental education program designed to introduce both K-12 teachers and their students to field, laboratory, and satellite data analysis methods for assessing the state-of-health of local forest stands. Forest Watch provides teacher-training workshops which are designed to assist teachers in introducing their students to selected hands-on techniques, based on CSRC research methods, for evaluating the health of white pine (Pinus strobus), a known bio-indicator for tropospheric or ground-level ozone damage. Through the Forest Watch program, students become actively engaged in conducting meaningful scientific research, and in the process, learn authentic science by collecting and compiling data useful to UNH researchers involved in a regional survey of white pine health across New England. Initiated in 1991, Forest Watch currently includes schools in six New England states as well as parts of New York and Maryland.

Students participate in three types of activities on an annual basis, these include: 1) ground -based forest stand assessment, 2) laboratory-based assessment of needle damage symptoms, and 3) image processing/data analysis of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data for the area around their school. Each activity is designed to provide results that are both quantitative and scientifically valuable at a range of scales, from the cellular-, forest stand-, and regional- levels. Student field and laboratory measurements are sent to the University of New Hampshire, where they are analyzed and integrated into the regional white pine study. Students also collect white pine branch samples that are sent to the University to be analyzed with a field reflectance spectrometer. Each year a compilation of Forest Watch results is published, consisting of all student-generated field and laboratory measurements and the spectral reflectance measurements for the needle samples.

Forest Watch combines space-age technology with old fashion biology to excite students and engage them in conducting and contributing to an authentic science project. Integrated field, laboratory, and image processing activities introduce students to the use of Earth-orbiting satellites and NASA data as a means of monitoring the local environment. Although the present program focuses on white pine, similar programs, assessing other sensitive bio-indicator species, are currently under development in other areas of the country or world. In the Czech Republic, a high school program entitled "Jak se maji Smrky" ("How are you, spruces?") is patterned after the methods and protocols developed in Forest Watch, including fieldwork, laboratory analyses, and satellite data/image processing. A similar program, focused on the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) and its effects, is being developed for use in Forest Watch in 2005.

Project SMART - Every summer since 1991, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) has held a month-long residential program for exceptional high school students called Project SMART (an acronym for Science and Mathematics Achievement through Research Training). In Project SMART, students are asked to enroll in a discipline-based module designed to expose them to on-going research activities in Space Science, Environmental Science, Biotechnology, and Chemistry being conducted by UNH faculty members. Students are then expected to participate in a specific area of independent research of interest to them, to collect and analyze data, and to present their findings in the form of oral presentations and scientific posters during the final day of the program.

This academic program, designed for high school sophomores and juniors, emphasizes an integrated hands-on approach for pre-college students through their active involvement in faculty-supervised scientific research. Students from diverse backgrounds meet at research centers across the University, and are given the opportunity to explore, in depth, fields of science that are not generally offered in high school curricula. The program includes interdisciplinary lectures, demonstrations, field trips, and authentic research experiences. Our statistics from previous years of Project SMART indicate that typically more than 50% of the enrollees are women. Student research during the summer of 2004 has involved several NASA-based projects using Landsat and MODIS data sets, field activities, and computer simulations. Environmental Science topics focused on aquatic and terrestrial studies, many involving remote sensing analysis and image processing methods. Several examples of cross-disciplinary studies integrating concepts from both Space Science and Environmental Science were developed. The knowledge that students gain is then presented in the form of a research poster they present at the last day of the program and defend in public viewing to other researchers, friends, and families.

The vast majority of Project SMART students find the four-week experience to be highly motivating, often helping them to select specific college programs to be pursued following high school. One example: Anya Whittington participated in the Project SMART environmental program as a high school Junior in 1992. Once she graduated from high school she entered the University of New Hampshire (1994-1998) in the Department of Natural Resources, majoring in Forestry. She then became a research technician at UNH, and worked as the Program Coordinator of Forest Watch, a K-12 environmental outreach program developed at the University. In 2000 she entered the PhD program in environmental education at the University of Maine, Orono, graduating with a doctoral degree in 2004. She is now coordinating a state-wide environmental education program in Vermont.

GIS Day - GIS Day is a day set aside during National Geography Awareness Week every November for Geo-Spatial Science professionals to reach out and educate people of all ages about the important contributions that Geo-Spatial Science related technologies make in all of our lives. Hosted GIS Day conference guests include hundreds of high school junior and senior level students and home schooled students from all over Northern New England, Geo-Spatial Science professionals, university level students and the general public.
GIS Day conference guests are hosted to an extensive modern cartographic exhibition, Geo-Spatial Science college fair, Geo-Spatial Science vendor hall and talks and presentations about Geo-Spatial Science career and educational opportunities. Special attractions and events in previous years have included, the "Earth from Space" NASA Satellite Imagery Collection Exhibition, the Library of Congress Antique Map Collection and the ORBIS 11 foot diameter EarthBall globe. Special guest speakers have included Former US Astronaut Dr. Jay Apt, President of the American Society of Photogrametery and Remote Sensing Dr. Russell Congalton, Director of New England Forest Watch Program Dr. Barry Rock, and Director of the NH Space Grant Consortium, Dr. David Bartlett.

Measuring Vegetation Health (MVH) - The MVH project is a joint informal education effort conducted by the Boston Museum of Science, The Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, the University of New Hampshire (CSRC and EOS-WEBSTER), and Indiana State University. The project, designed to introduce the general public to the concept that satellites work by measuring light reflected fro Earth surfaces, proposes to integrate existing classroom-tested curriculum (Forest Watch) and the strengths of the collaborators to make new materials. The merged series will be made available in three mediums:
  1. Stand-alone learning activities that may be incorporated by teachers on an "as needed" basis,
  2. Learning activities incorporated into year-long curriculum, and
  3. Experiential activities that may be used by any museum, science center, arboretum, botanical garden, or National Park Service educator.
This structure may also support schools to use participating science centers since there will be materials available for pre- and post-visit activities for students.

The New England Regional Assessment - Based on the findings of the New England Regional Assessment (NERA) of the potential regional impacts of climate change, this program is focused on educating the general public about climate change issues, with a specific focus on past, present, and future climate impacts to the New England region. The NERA study was conducted as part of the larger U.S. Global Change Research Program's National Assessment - Overview of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. The program presents background on the science behind our current understanding of global climate change, and a summary of NERA findings. These findings include the following: 1) Using historic climate data, the New England region (including upstate New York and the six New England states) has warmed by 0.7oF since 1895; 2) This historic warming has not been uniform across the region or across the seasons; 3) The current warming has already had significant impacts on regional air quality, affecting both human and forest health; 4) The two global climate models used in the study, the Hadley model and the Canadian model, both project significant warming over the next century (6.0 oF and 10.0 oF respectively); and 5) If either of these projected climate scenarios were to occur, the impacts on the New England Region would be profound. Suggestions on how best to respond to these impending changes are also included.

New England Science Center Collaborative (NESCC) - Volunteer training workshops will be developed in collaboration with the NESCC, a network of well over 30 member science museums such as the McAulliffe Planetarium, the Seacoast Science Center and the New England Aquarium. While its focus has been on New England, the Collaborative has developed an effective series of day-long training workshops presented by members of the CSRC that will serve as a model for development at the National scale. The purpose of this collaborative effort is focused on educating the public via exhibits, kiosks, and speaker series.

EOS-WEBSTER - EOS-WEBSTER provides free, customized Earth Science data to the research community, educators, policy makers, and the general public. Our data holdings can be searched spatially, temporally, or by keyword, freetext, or collection name. EOS-WEBSTER has distributed over 100,000 data products to our users world-wide since 1999.
EOS-WEBSTER has recently begun to develop classroom-friendly access to free satellite data that now widely used by teachers and their students. Teamed with Forest Watch teachers, this Web-based educational tool has been tested and evaluated for use in educating the next generation of Earth System scientists.

Educational Programs:


Research and Development

Research & Discover is a summer internship program available to students who have completed their junior year of college. Participants will receive a generous stipend, as well as room and board. However, there’s more....Following the first summer internship at UNH, participants will be encouraged to apply for a second summer internship to be held at the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA-GSFC, located on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., is the nation’s largest organization of combined scientists and engineers studying the Earth, solar system, and the universe. Following this internship, participants will be eligible to receive a two-year fellowship for graduate study at UNH. More details and an application form can be found at: http://www.eos.sr.unh.edu/researchanddiscover/. This innovative approach to engaging the best and brightest undergraduate students in the study of Earth-related science has proven to be a significant step in fostering strong graduate-level Masters projects.

Earth System Science course – the development of the Earth System Science course was funded by a grant from NASA, and all course materials are peer reviewed by NASA research scientists and education specialists. This course provides an introduction to the study of Earth as an integrated system. We will introduce the major components, interactions, and concepts for characterizing the contemporary Earth System (e.g. spheres, cycles, energy balance, equilibrium, feedbacks, linear and non-linear dynamics). Each lecture will build on background information to address advanced themes from recent scientific literature (e.g. non-linear systems, thresholds in metastable systems), and will include opportunities for class participation through group problem solving exercises and discussions. Research scientists from NASA who work in the field of Earth System Science will present guest lectures. Labs will focus on building computer models of key Earth System interactions discussed in the lectures. During the second part of the course, students will develop their own computer models to explore a specific question in Earth System Science.

Inquiry-based Remote Sensing – The Complex Systems Research Center, in collaboration with the UNH Department of Education, has developed an inquiry-based course for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students based on the use of remote sensing methods. The remote sensing tools used by the students range from a field-portable reflectance spectrometer to an image processing software that allows students to conduct image analysis on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data for the Durham, NH area. The NASA-developed freeware (MultiSpec) is available at no cost on-line, and can be downloaded onto the students’ own desk top or lap top computers (either Mac or PC). The inquiry-based remote sensing course is offered as the second course in our proposed two-course sequence, following the Earth System Science course. This second course in the sequence is designed to provide the remote sensing tools needed by both students to conduct research on local topics of interest. Such collaborative research involving students in discipline-specific studies investigating local examples of change-over-time, landscape-level impacts of urban development, severe weather events, and other natural and anthropogenic perturbations. Depending on faculty and student interests, the policy implications of such changes may be investigated.