Academic Mission
The Hoa‘aina RS/GIS Center is operated by the Natural Sciences Department at Windward Community College (WCC) and is a major component of WCC's Pacific Partnerships for Science Education. The Hoa‘aina RS/GIS Center supports WCC's academic emphasis in the marine, earth and space sciences. Students receive training and engage in research in environmental monitoring through the use of this facility's state-of-the-art equipment in remote sensing (RS), geographic information system (GIS) and global positioning system (GPS).
| WCC's proximity to the watersheds of the Ko‘olau Mountain Range and Kane‘ohe Bay affords the Windward campus a natural laboratory for exposing students to ecological issues. Locally, the mounting stresses on Hawai‘i's coral reefs and coastlines from sediment-laden stream run-offs, nutrients resulting from sewage effluents and stream-borne fertilizers are of special interest. WCC's RS/GIS program is an educational response to meeting Hawai‘i's stated goal of attaining a sustainable future for our island state. |  |
The primary purpose of the Hoa‘aina RS/GIS Center is to facilitate WCC's undergraduate curriculum in Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS). The Hoa‘aina RS/GIS Center further serves as a resource to researchers, managers, educators and community members whose work can benefit from the application of these technologies. Current applications involve coral reef monitoring in Kane‘ohe Bay in cooperation with the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology and the Hawai‘i Space Grant Consortium Program. In addition, because coastal land use practices influence these adjacent reef environments, we are conducting watershed studies in cooperation with local community groups such as the Kailua Bay Advisory Council, the Friends of He‘eia State Park, and the Kawai Nui Marsh Heritage Foundation. Ethnobotanical and archaeoastronomical surveys are also being conducted with these high-tech procedures.
NASA Center of Excellence
Windward Community College was recently
awarded a $93,000 Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) grant, which
designated WCC as a NASA Center of Excellence in the
Training and Applications of Remote Sensing and Geographic
Information System to Environmental Monitoring. (To
explore other NASA RS/GIS Centers of Excellence, visit the
website at http://aria.arizona.edu/new)
This NASA MTPE grant, together with a Phi Theta Kappa-National Science Foundation grant, has enabled Windward Community College to establish an educational training and environmental monitoring center named Hoa‘aina (Hawaiian for Stewards of the Land).
The Hoa‘aina RS/GIS Center, which is housed in WCC's new Natural Sciences Building—Hale ‘Imiloa (Hawaiian for House of Discovery)—operates as a walk-in facility and can also be accessed via its web site for information acquisition. Included in this facility are state-of-the-art equipment, such as high-end NT workstations with assorted peripherals, submeter-accuracy GPS roving units and a GPS base station.
WCC also operates a T-ris satellite tracking earth station which permits reception of D-band digital downlink signals from HRPT-like polar orbiting/LEO satellites, both weather and ocean imaging satellites. Included in this coverage is NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution (AVHRR) data. This earth station affords WCC students the opportunity to gain experiential training in real-time data acquisition, archival storage methods, image processing, weather analysis and satellite orbital mechanics.
RS/GIS Curriculum
Studies in GIS (a computerized mapping technique which allows for interactive analysis of spatial information) are a major element of WCC's curricular initiative in environmental monitoring. A 3-credit GIS course provides an introduction to the field of GIS in general and to the applications of ArcView GIS software in particular. Students receive training in the manipulation, analysis and display of spatial data, as well as the construction of attribute tables and geographic databases. Students also obtain hands-on experience with GPS units. Although the course applications are drawn primarily from the environmental sciences, its cross-disciplinary nature permits students to explore GIS usage in such diverse fields as city planning, market analysis, real estate development and security management.
The rapid changes in our high-tech job market are quickly rendering many careers obsolete. The need for immediate upgrading and re-training of the workforce is already re-defining the role of community colleges across the mainland to that of post-graduate training centers. WCC's RS/GIS curriculum models this national trend as we explore viable ways of re-employing our State's displaced workforce. RS/GIS skills are essential to many potential new fields of employment for Hawai‘i. Among these are environmental monitoring and management, forestry and marine bio-technology.
Partnerships and Advisors
Success of WCC's RS/GIS curriculum initiative is based on extensive collaboration with numerous partners, such as the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources, Kailua Bay Advisory Council, Kawai Nui Marsh Foundation, Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology and the East-West Center. WCC has also established a partnership with ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) for conducting advanced training workshops at the WCC campus with such GIS programs as ArcView and ARC/INFO.
Several advisors provided invaluable expertise in the early developmental stages of WCC's curricular initiative in environmental monitoring. Notable among these were:
Funding and In-Kind Support
WCC has received financial support for establishing the Hoa‘aina RS/GIS Center and implementing its RS/GIS curricular initiative from a wide range of organizations, including:
