Author Archives: Dave Poulson

Workshop helps scientists and journalists improve climate change communication

Journalists and scientists learn about climate change research on a trout stream near MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station.

Susan White peered through her Skype hookup in Brooklyn at the journalists and scientists gathered on the other end of the connection in West Michigan.
“Can I first say hello to Steve?” the executive editor of InsideClimate News asked. “Steve, we’ve never met, but I feel like I know you.”
Stephen Hamilton, a scientist at Michigan State University’s Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners, Mich., had just finished explaining the environmental fallout from a pipeline that had ruptured in 2010, polluting the nearby Kalamazoo River and its wetlands with Canadian tar sands oil.
His acknowledgement of the greeting was brief. But the exchange spoke volumes. Hamilton, an ecosystems ecologist and biogeochemist, had the expertise, local knowledge and independence to be a valuable source on the story that InsideClimate News had dubbed “the biggest oil spill you’ve never heard of.”
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Chicago youth tackle Asian carp science

Notre Dame scientist Chris Jerde explains how to sample water for eDNA to a group of Chicago youth journalists. Photo: Kari Lydersen

A group of Chicago youth journalism students recently traveled to the University of Notre Dame to learn how to find Asian carp without actually catching them.
The workshop was a collaboration of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and We the People Media’s Eco Youth Reporters program. The students met with David Poulson, the center’s associate director, and traveled to Notre Dame with their instructor, award-winning journalist Kari Lydersen.
The effort is funded by the McCormick Foundation.
The students learned about checking the water for the DNA of the invasive fish whose huge appetite can change entire ecosystems. At Notre Dame’s Linked Experimental Environmental Facility the youth met with scientist Chris Jerde. He explained the difference between DNA taken from fish and eDNA taken from the environment.
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Knight Center grad gets job in China but can't escape carp

Silu Guo at her internship at NBC News.

Like many of the interns at the Knight Center’s Great Lakes Echo, Silu Guo learned plenty about Asian carp.
The fight to keep the invasive fish from entering the Great Lakes and screwing up the ecosystem certainly chews up a lot of news hole on Echo and elsewhere.
Apparently including in China.
Silu returned to China last January and finished her coursework long distance to earn a masters degree from Michigan State University’s School of Journalism this spring. Continue reading →

MSU professor's comparison of environmental journalists and bloggers gains top recognition

Bruno Takahashi

MSU professor Bruno Takahashi is delivering an award-winning paper that compares environmental journalists and environmental bloggers on June 20 at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association in London.
The study found that the journalists and the bloggers have the same level of concern and perceived knowledge about the environment, but that they conceive their roles differently and use different sources. The research examines the implications on the evolving nature of environmental reporting and discourse.
The study, co-authored with Edson Tandoc at the University of Missouri-Columbia,was recognized as a top 2013 faculty award by the association’s Environmental Communication Interest Group. They will be presenting on a panel called Blogs, boundaries, and burly brothers: Building new environmental understanding with new media.
Takahashi, an assistant professor of environmental journalism and communication, is affiliated with MSU’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. He teaches JRN 473/873, Seminar in environmental journalism.