WASHINGTON D.C. – Rep. Michael Honda (CA-15) joins NASA and local California universities to launch an innovative new partnership on sustainability at the NASA Ames Conference Center (Bldg 3) in Mountain View, CA, this Friday, March 13, 2009, from 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. The University of California at Santa Cruz and Foothill-De Anza Community College District, together with NASA, are forming a public-private partnership to establish a sustainable, green community on approximately 75 acres of land in the NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, California.

The new NASA-University collaboration fosters the creation of a new “Meta-University” model, as envisioned by the California Master Plan for Higher Education, wherein joint academic programs collaborate on science, engineering, and innovation.

Commenting on the launch, Rep. Honda said, “This partnership exemplifies what a classroom of the future should look like. This is a new model for education, an environment that stimulates innovative learning while simultaneously modeling innovation. As a former science teacher, I place high value on science as investments like these will be returned tenfold in the innovations by students from UCSC and De Anza. Yet, science must be applicable to our daily lives and help us solve today’s problems, one of which is our warming planet. I applaud this partnership’s high goal of getting us closer to green energy, sustainable communities and ultimately a cooler planet.”

The NASA-University partnership develops a community dedicated to education, research, and innovation while serving as a prototype for advanced green energy technologies and regenerative water and waste management systems. The proposed 2000 household development will aim to sustainably integrate housing, research and teaching laboratories, classrooms and work environments.