Evergreen State College has been awarded a grant to continue development and greatly expand a suite of tools for integration, visualization and manipulation of forest canopy data facilitating structure-function research and synthesis. The informatics component is integrated with field studies in a relationship that will facilitate studies that would not have been possible without the advanced informatics and hat will provide testing and validation as the informatics evolve. A basic concept of the informatics development is to generate tools for sophisticated end-user modular programming with a minimal learning curve. The educational part of the project is integrated with well developed educational efforts at all levels from K12 through graduate programs. Community involvement and distribution is facilitated by collaboration with the LTER information management network and NCEAS.
