While you will want to concentrate on the rigourous nature of what we are
doing it is important to stress the educational benefit. Because GLOBE's
congressional critics are lampooning the scientific benefit of the program
(do you have the NYT 5/7/96 story), I would put a strong emphasis on the
educational benefits to get that point across. Here are some key points you
probably already have:

Of course the most basic idea is that schools are racing to get connected with
the internet and GLOBE gives them a perfect program to integrate this new
technology in a wide variety of science, math, geography, language, writing
and cultural settings. GLOBE gives puropse to the internet.

Science Benefits
	builds science and math skills
	brings state-of-the-art technology to both urban and rural schools
	supports MTPE by creating active public participation in ground
		truth studies
	supports USGCRP through public education and potentially high value
		distributed, long-term environmental measurements
	illustrates the critical and dynamic interconnections between the
		basic Earth Systems

Educational Benefits
	fosters life-long appreciation and understanding of Earth System Science
	lays foundation for basic skills that relate global issues to common
		and local concerns
	gives context to local problems/living conditions by contrasting
		specific measures and qualitative global views
	develops internet-based communication and scientific collaboration skills
	builds integrted thinking and analysis skills based on interdisciplinary
		science concepts
	
Data quality is a critical issue. It is best to be frank and acknowledge the
challanges poised by school sites, unrepresentative samples, unskilled
participants and simple tools. The best defense is often to reflect on the
alternatives - do nothing, limited historical data, declining funding for
basic research, disparate survey standards. This has to be seen as an
OPPORTUNITY - both educaationally and scientifically. This effort has great
potential, with educational objectives more easily realized than scientific
ones. In all cases, a long-term effort will allow us to tune results in
both of these areas for maximum benefit.

It is important to bring it to the science communities attention that this
effort bolsters their long-term objectives by generating public participation,
appreciation and interest in Earth System Science.

As for my general approach:

Gypsum blocks have proven to be difficult to deploy and analyze in many
school settings. They have the advantage of making possible daily, multi-
depth moisture measurements with the increased understanding of deep soil
moisture to agriculture and plant growth. Gypsum blocks also have a limited
sensitivity range - tending to "saturate" at high moisture levels and to
be insensitive at low moisture contents. It is an indirect measurement of the
more important parameter - soil tension.

I have made major modifications to make soil moisture studies more accessible
at all grade levels. The over-riding scientific objective is monitoring
surface soil moisture that would be sensed by satellite remote sensing sensors.
I am having sample analysis be done by gravimetric methods and have proposed
experimental drying techniques for schools without ovens. The former
protocols are now optional - but still very useful, even in a qualitative
sense.

What have I learned: many areas have adequate soil moisture for much of the
year (the dry summer season is hardly sampled by many schools). This 
reinforces the intuitive feeling many hydrologist have that soil moisture
studies are of most use in arid and semi-arid regions where the cycling
of soil moisture is most important and variable. This is advantageous since
we have little hope for measuring soil moisture underneath closed forest
canopies.

Only about 40 schools have participated in this part of the project so far
(as measured by data archive reports). This likely undersamples participation
by as much as a factor of 2 since schools are not supposed to report their
data until they have a calibration curve and many schools have never
experienced the necessary dry soils to do this.


     ----------------------- Cheers ----------------- 
  Jim Washburne    GLOBE Soil Moisture Scientist/ jwash@hwr.arizona.edu 
                   Department of Hydrology and Water Resources 
  		 P.O. Box 210011 
                   University of Arizona,  Tucson, AZ 85721-0011 
                   520 621-9944 (Off);   520 621-1422 (FAX) 
           ***** NOTE - UA has a new area code and PO Address! *****