By Eric Freedman

Jeremy Steele giving building tour to students

The Knight Center hosted journalism and science students and teachers from three Michigan high schools that had won collaboration grants from a center initiative.

The groups from Everett High School in Lansing, Grandville High School in Grandville and Thurston High School in Redford presented their collaborative projects, which will be posted on the Knight Center website when they’re complete.

Speaker Brian Bienkowski

They also met with Knight Center faculty and Journalism School Director Lucinda Davenport and heard Knight Center master’s alum Brian Bienkowski, an editor at Environmental Health News, talk about his experience in reporting about environmental issues.

In addition, the groups toured the J-School’s state-of-the-art multimedia newsroom with Jeremy Steele, director of the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association, and toured MSU’s Veterinary Diagnostic Lab.

Students giving presentations

The Knight Center created the annual grant program and invited journalism and science teachers to propose innovative class projects in which journalism students report about field research conducted by themselves or separately by environmental science students.