2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

imagery, integrated with maps, aerial photography,
and airborne and satellite imagery using wetland as
the focal element.
The WETMAAP Program develops and offers
wetland training sessions and maintains a website for
educators and professionals that provide basic instruction
in ecological concepts, technological skills,
and methods of interpretation necessary for understanding
and assessing wetland and upland habitat
change. Training sessions explore wetlands using
multiple data sets and introduces traditional mapping
technology to formal and informal educators.
The WETMAAP materials are designed for use by
secondary education teachers, undergraduate and
graduates students, university and college professors,
informal educators, and local and regional government
officials. The Airborne Science Program has
supported the WETMAAP program and selected
workshops since 1995. Support has consisted of
funding, ASP photography and digital imagery,
and NASA satellite imagery. Also members of the
Airborne Science Program staff have participated in
WETMAAP workshops as trainers and guest lecturers.
Of the 163 WETMAAP workshops facilitated between
1995 and 2009, NASA supported 36 workshops
throughout the United States, Costa Rica, and
Panama. For 2009, WETMAAP completed the Wallops
Island site and presented a two-day wetland education
workshop held in August with 8 participants.
Day 1 was the in class hands-on training and Day
2 was a field experience visiting wetland locations
associated with the site. The response by informal
educators from Marine Science Consortium (MSC)
who attended the session was positive. As a result
of networking a collaborative effort was established
between the MSC Undergraduate Education Coordinator
and Education Coordinator at NASA Wallops
Flight Facility to sustain the Wallops Island wetland
training with additional sessions scheduled for 2010.
For the International Symposium of Remote Sensing
and the Environment (ISRSE) held in May at Stress,
Italy, a pre-conference seminar on WETMAAP was
also presented by ASP personnel. Briefing documents
on “Developing Multiple Components for an
Education Model for the NASA Airborne Science
program” were distributed. WETMAAP also completed
the initial site visit and site identification for
developing a workshop on coral reefs along the coast
of Puerto Rico.
CeNAT Workshops
NASA aircraft have acquired data with
various sensors for a variety of research
objectives involving both NASA and Costa
Rican investigators since the early 1980’s. This
collaborative relationship lead to an agreement
signed in 2002 which was the basis for the
Costa Rican Aircraft Research and Technology
Applications (CARTA I) project in 2003 and the
CARTA II project in 2005. These agreements
were implemented through the Costa Rican
National Center for Advanced Technology (Centro
Nacional de Alta Tecnologia - CeNAT) as part of
its National Program for Airborne Research and
Remote Sensing (PRIAS).
Remotely-sensed data acquired through the
CARTA I and II projects with sensors on
the NASA WB-57 aircraft provided both
multispectral and hyper spectral scanner data
as well as digital camera imagery. In addition,
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data was
acquired with the AIRSAR sensor on the NASA
DC-8 aircraft in 2004, and Lidar data was
acquired with the NASA LVIS sensor on a DOE
aircraft in 2005. These data have been used for
a variety of research and applications purposes
by various Costa Rican agencies and Universities,
and has been made available to the NASA
Decadal Survey and the NASA-SERVIR project
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