Category Archives: Workshops

The Knight Center for Environmental Journalism organizes workshops to help journalists better report on the environment in the U.S. and abroad. Information about recent and upcoming conferences is posted here.

Poulson reports on African academic innovation project

Chiku Mtegha, a researcher at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture an Natural Resources, explains to African journalists research into using chemicals from local plants to deworm goats.

Knight Center Senior Associate Director David Poulson contributed to a recent article on building the capacity of academics to do relevant research at African universities.

“How design thinking united researchers and farmers” appears in the African edition of The Conversation.

It reports on a strategy that encourages academics to create, develop and implement their own research agendas to more directly address the needs of people. Continue reading

Knight Center director talks about fake news

Eric Freedman speaking to faculty and students in Kazakhstan

Knight Center director Eric Freedman recently gave two long-distance guest lectures on fake news to journalism students and faculty at universities in Kazakhstan.

Hosting the lectures were Hodja Ahmed Yassawi Kazakh-Turkish International University in Turkistan and Sarsen Amanzholov East Kazakhstan State University in Ust-Kamenogorsk

Freedman’s lectures addressed the growing prevalence of fake news, misinformation and manipulation that is fueled by social media and threatens democratization, citizen trust in the press and transparency. Continue reading

High school journalism, science teachers and students visit Knight Center

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. Continue reading

Modern smugglers use social media to sell Chile’s ancient botanical riches

Copiapoa cinérea, endemic cacti of Antofagasta, commonly found in private collections around the world. Image: Juan Mauricio Contreras.

By Diego Almendras

Northern Chile is among the driest regions in the world, but far from being a desolate, arid wilderness, the desert overflows with life.

But people are disturbing these fragile ecosystems and the cacti that live there. Land use changes in coastal areas that they inhabit, climate change that modifies water availability and illegal trade threaten these slow-growing plants.

Continue reading