EE in the News
February 26th, 2009
MinnPost has a nice article featuring the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s rain simulator being used to teach kids about soil erosion.
Here’s a video from MDA:
News Round-Up
January 12th, 2009
Some news articles that caught my eye:
MN Dept. of Ag is holding Gypsy Moth Open Houses
New UK Fungi Protection Strategy
The Carbon Cost of Google
Few boats and barges using Locks
Massive Fail = Public Attention
December 22nd, 2008
While 25,000 gallons of liquid fertilizer dumped into the Mississippi is a very depressing event, it does bring the River and its environmental status to the forefront of the public’s mind. Making it the perfect time for a press release or home page online news story.
To see if anyone was taking advantage of this opportunity I checked the mostly likely websites (nonprofit and local and state gov.) and didn’t see any press releases or articles. It’s possible that I missed a response on those websites, but if I missed it the public and reporters may too.
It would be great see an article or news release that addresses lingering questions: what effect may the fertilizer have on the river? does it make a difference that this happened in winter and not summer? What kind of clean-up and monitoring is Canadian Pacific responsible for? Has something similar happened in the past and how did it work out? These questions could be used as lead-ins to whatever information your organization may what to get out to the public: “to learn more about water quality attend our program/check out our website”, etc.
Here are some tips to help catch the wave:
1. Subscribe to RSS feeds to stay on top of the news (Minnesota Public Radio, MN DNR, ScienceBlogs, for example)
2. Keep an old news release or article handy so you can just fill in the blanks.
3. If a news release or article doesn’t get picked up by the media still post it on your website. Interested people will find it.