Southern University Center for Coastal Zone Assessment and Remote Sensing's (CCZARS') major thrust is to enhance research and training capabilities in areas that have great potential for impacting the economic development of the State of Louisiana, in particular, the coastal region of Gulf of Mexico. These programs will provide new technology for the solution and increased awareness of Louisiana's already diverse environmental and coastal problems. Data acquisition encompassing the use of Landsat 7 and SPOT imagery with acquisition from Space Imaging as well as resolution analysis are ongoing projects. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning System (GPS) and Remote Sensing (RS) are cutting-edge technologies with multi-disciplined applications, such as transportation, environment, and water resources. GIS, GPS and RS training, support, and development are conducted at Southern University and fits with the core competencies of the John C. Stennis Space Center. 

The CCZARS's GIS and Remote Laboratory has recently been named an official Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Authorized Partner Education Center (APEC).  This designation allows the CCZARS to provide ESRI certified training and workshops to industry, faculty, students and others.  The CCZARS's APEC is the only HBCU sponsored, official, ERSI designated APEC in the state of Louisiana.  The CCZARS has already hosted two, GIS K-12 Teacher training workshops, one middle school GIS mini-camp and provided the Timbuktu sponsored Getting Smarter at the Timbuktu Academy (GESTA) with a three hour introduction to GIS for elementary school kids.

The CCZARS APEC is also hosting a GIS Teacher Training workshop with ESRI certification for the Louisiana Department of Education on July 28 ¡V 29, 2005.  The CCZARS Lab also hosts an electronic Internet Map Server (IMS) and a Spatial Database Engine (SDE) warehouse system.  ArcGIS, ArcVIEW, ERDAS Imagine Suite, and vGEO are software systems that are presently being used in the GIS Lab for imagery analysis.  With vGEO, the CCZARS GIS Lab is able to incorporate spatial data into 3-D imagery using the Computer Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE).  The CAVE is a unique piece of equipment used for multi-person immersion in a real-time virtual environment.  The CAVE is very useful for training analysts, for visualization of geospatial information, and for discovery of geospatial intelligence.