Michigan's Environmental Portal: A New One-Stop Resource

Contact: Jessica Knoblauch at knoblau7@msu.edu

Michigan State University's Environmental Science and Policy Program is pleased to announce the launch of Michigan Environmental Portal, an environmental information page now available at http://www.environment.msu.edu/mep/. The portal is a conglomerate of environmental resources available at MSU and in the Michigan region. It provides an array of services useful to anyone interested in the environment. Tom Dietz, Director of ESPP, says that the portal is intended to help achieve Michigan State's aim to "advance knowledge and transform lives" by "giving people easier access to MSU and other resources."

The core of the page is Michigan's Echo, a news service provided by MSU's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Echo publishes daily online summaries of more than 35 categories of environmental news appearing in Michigan newspapers. Users can click on topics such as energy and climate to see the recent articles that have been written those issues. They can also search by region and examine archives by linking from the Portal to Echo's home page. This feature is especially useful to journalists and researchers curious to see what environmental issues have been covered and by whom.

The Portal also connects users to:

Groups involved in Michigan environmental issues. For those who want to do environmental research or get involved, but don't know where to begin, this feature serves as a jumping off point for researchers and journalists. Links are available to federal and state agencies, MSU outreach facilities Extension and Land Policy Institute, non-governmental organizations such as the Central Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, and other groups in the Michigan area concerned with environmental issues.

Environmental expertise on the MSU campus. The Portal provides a searchable database of more than 130 faculty doing environmental work. Journalists doing research on invasive species in the Great Lakes area can quickly generate a list of possible contacts by searching the database for faculty with that expertise. The keywords for the database were generated by the Society of Environmental Journalists to insure they are useful to the public. The database also indicates if the faculty member is willing to talk to the press, teachers and government officials.

The portal provides a central place for people interested in the environment, effectively eliminating the need for people to search multiple websites to get the information they're looking for. "The website is intended to help build a collaborative network of researchers, decision makers, and concerned citizens," says Dietz. "Better communication and better access to research will help us move towards a more sustainable Michigan."

Dietz adds that ESPP is very open to having people suggest additional resources or changes to the website. "We are actively soliciting feedback and will use that as a mechanism to continue to evolve," says Dietz. Those with suggestions or comments about the website can email ESPP news writer Jessica Knoblauch at knoblau7@msu.edu.