The My Community, Our Earth (MyCOE) project, which encourages students from around the world to analyze their own communities in terms of sustainable development, attracted more than 2,000 entries. Eighty-seven countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe are currently represented.

MyCOE is an educational program that encourages participating secondary school and university students throughout the world to use geographic tools to demonstrate how their communities are changing, the effects of those changes, and what might be done in their communities to improve the quality of life and conserve natural resources.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would help sponsor the project. Acting under the coordination of the USDA Council on Sustainable Development, sponsoring USDA agencies include the Agricultural Research Service; the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service; the Forest Service; and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Other sponsors include Earthscape, ERDAS, Inter-American Development Bank, 3M, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Department of State.

The organizing partners of the MyCOE project include the Association of American Geographers, Esri, the National Geographic Society, and the United Nations Environment Programme.

Project results will be displayed at a number of venues including the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August and September 2002, and Esri's July 2002 International User Conference in San Diego, California.

The project received a significant boost in Turkey due to the efforts of the American embassy there. The embassy hosted a MyCOE presentation for Turkish officials that attracted more than 70 attendees. Representatives from the ministries of Environment, Foreign Affairs, and National Education, as well as other government officials and educators, attended the meeting. This effort resulted in a significant number of project proposals.

For more information, visit www.aag.org/sustainable or contact Misty Allred, MyCOE Project, 1710 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20009 (tel.: 202-234-1450).