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Your chance to help build the new Great Lakes Wiki
Great Lakes environmental issues will be reported by a collaboration of students and citizens in a unique journalism project – known as Great Lakes Wiki. “This project will heighten awareness of the environmental challenges faced by the people who live near 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water,” said David Poulson, associate director of the Knight Center. “It empowers citizens to cover issues under-reported by mainstream media while training students in new journalism techniques.” The project will use the communication and community-building technologies exemplified by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Students will investigate Great Lakes contaminated areas identified by the United States and Canadian governments. They will create online descriptions of problems, solutions, contaminants, health consequences, industries, local leaders and other issues surrounding these sites. Complex histories of contaminated sites will be illustrated with interactive timelines linked to supporting documents and images. The students will help environmental, industrial and government groups already engaged in these issues learn to augment and edit entries themselves. The idea is to leverage the expertise of nontraditional journalists to accurately report complex environmental news. MSU assistant professor Cliff Lampe, who will organize the wiki technology for the course, said, “There are exciting new possibilities for people to take action about the things they care about, and technologies like this play a key role.” E-mail Dave Poulson at poulson@msu.edu for information on how you can become part of this new adventure. return to SpartanEdge.com home page 
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