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[[underline]] Air and Space Museum. [[/underline]] Over the next five years, the Museum expects to bring its education, research, and exhibits activities more into balance. Using its extensive biographic files, technical plans, and artifacts, present levels of historical research on aviation and space flight will be strengthened. The Center for Earth and Planetary Studies will seek to expand its efforts in arid land remote sensing, comparative planetology, lunar geology and photo-imaging.

To be more responsive to the needs of the visiting public, in FY 1977 the Museum commissioned an outside study to review the educational program. Based on this report, a program is being developed emphasizing participatory experiences for the visitor and specialized learning situations, especially for multi-cultural and handicapped audiences.

The Museum also plans to complete its collections inventory within the next two years. The inventory is well underway and when completed will allow for better utilization of storage space, savings in curatorial research time, and identification of gaps within the various collections. A review of archival material is also underway using microfiche techniques to record aspects of collections for future reference and to improve the retrievability of materials for research purposes.

Increased building maintenance resources are projected for future years. The Museum is conducting a study to determine future needs.  Maintenance costs for both the building and the exhibits have been higher than anticipated, due to the very high and sustained visitations. Some further facilities upgrading will be required at Silver Hill, and these projects are described in the facilities chapter of this document.

[[underline]] Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies. [[/underline]] The Center's environmental research program is designed to develop an understanding of how man's activities effect ecological systems, particularly where alterations in land use are involved. To this end, the Center has constructed, with grant and contract funding, a system for the measurement of the quality of land runoff and its effects on estuarine waters. This is the only watershed research program in the coastal United States. Efforts are being made to secure funding for continual operation of this system beginning in FY 1981. Related long-term studies of how large-scale changes in land use affect plant and animal communities were begun in FY 1979 on a pilot level and are to be intensified with funds requested in the FY 1981 budget. Over the next five years, the Center will seek to complete development of its core research staff to a total of fifteen professional positions.

Educational research and public information activities are aimed at improving the quality and effectiveness of outdoor-centered education and achieving maximum utilization of the Center's research findings. Over the next five years, the Center plans to expand its educational research activities, including the publication and dissemination of

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