Huete, Alfredo In response to an Announcement of Opportunity for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Program (GLOBE) this project is designed to meet the GLOBE goals and objectives of linking scientists and schoolchildren in a global information network with the ultimate goal of better understanding the Earth's environment and changes that take place within it. This proposal to GLOBE PHASE II has as its primary intent to develop data collection, data analysis, related curricula and a computer interface with pre-college educational programs within the U.S. and abroad in the area of soil moisture measurements. Several important scientific issues regarding the aggregation, representation and utility of direct soil moisture measurements for the purpose of improving and validating satellite-derived and model-derived soil moisture will be addressed with the data collected through this effort. Soil moisture deserves special focus, because: it represents the temporal and spatial variable state of the land/atmosphere interface, it is a critical factor in plant and animal productivity and because there is an overwhelming need for a widely distributed ground measurement network that only this kind of proposal can satisfy.
