A.O. Smith Water Products Company (Irving, TX) has continued its sponsorship of the Biosphere Foundation by donating an EEST-30 electric water heater to Biosphere's Research and Development Center in Santa Fe, NM. The water heater will be used in the newly constructed Laboratory Biosphere, which was scheduled to commence experiments on May 15. The Laboratory Biosphere is a 1,400-sq-ft steel opaque chamber housing technical and ecological systems.

Through the Laboratory, Biosphere officials hope to develop a study program for school children, allowing them to enter the chamber, work the plants and soils and monitor the gas, soils and biomass cycles through a computer program. Developers envision that the information generated from the chamber will be made available online for school participation.