During the XVII ISPRS Congress 1996 in Vienna, Austria, I was presented with a set of EOS science posters at the NASA booth. Their contents seemed to me to be very useful for geographical and ecological education in basic and secondary schools. Therefore, I got the idea to edit them in the Czech Republic. Due to the language barrier, it was necessary to publish the posters fully in the Czech language. For the first step, I contacted the EOS Project Science Office at NASA to provide me the permission to do it. With willingness, I obtained permission for translating the English text to Czech as well as the English contents of figures, if necessary. The EOS office supported me with all graphics files via ftp.
To realize the idea, it was critical first of all to find a well-known publishing company and also a sponsor who would be able to cover the expenses of editing. Due to good long-term cooperation, I chose cartographic publisher Stiefel Eurocart. The printing fees for the posters were covered by the AUTOPAL Novy Jicin Company on the basis of a sponsor agreement. This fact allowed us to support all schools in Central Moravia, which was struck by heavy floods in 1997, with a set of posters free of charge.
The whole project was realized on the informal basis of collaboration, effort and readiness of NASA's EOS Office (USA), and three Czech institutions such as Palacky University of Olomouc, Stiefel Eurocart and Autopal Novy Jicin. The biggest reward for the author of Czech mutation is the fact that a set of posters was put in NASA's EOS library.
--Assistant Professor, Dr. Miroslave Vysoudil
Palacky University
Editor's Note: The initiator of the project, Professor Vysoudil, is Head of the Department of Geography at Palacky University of Olomouc, Faculty of Science. The Department educates geography teachers for basic and secondary schools, and belongs among the important geographical workplaces in the Czech Republic.