The Mississippi NASA Community College Initiative

The object of this project was to provide greater utilization of existing resources to enhance the educational opportunities of Mississippi Community College students. When first introduced to the concept the teachers were understandably reluctant. They already had very heavy, prescribed work loads and most of what they had to do did not include NASA data. Teacher cooperation became a first goal. The second goal was effective use of NASA Earth Observation Data at every campus. Some compromises had to be made. The goal became to create a methodology or system that could be used on every campus and that the teachers would use. First year Biology was taught from a state-level prescribed curriculum on every one of the fifteen campuses. However, using Earth Observation Data in that curriculum was difficult. A compromise was made that allowed us to focus, in the first year, on the lesson hosting and creation process. Ten of the thirteen participating teachers agreed to create future lessons. They also asked to have a Community College Science Symposium in the Spring to demonstrate their lessons to the other science teachers in the state.