Undergraduates conduct biofuel sustainability research at KBS

Cait Gallagher and Tamira Vojnar had the unique experience of gaining hands-on research experience as undergraduates at the KBS LTER this summer. Gallagher and Vojnar were part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program that brings undergraduate students from across the country to KBS every summer. The ten-week REU program was funded by the Department of Energy through the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC). Gallagher, a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Vojnar, a junior at Bowdoin College in Maine, were at KBS from May through early

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Guest blogger Bill Krasean on climate

Contributed by Bill Krasean If computer models of changing climate are accurate -- and they get better all the time -- Michigan's weather in less than a century may be similar to Oklahoma's today. With little question summers will be hotter and there will be far fewer -- if any -- bitter cold spells in winter. Although predictions about precipitation are less reliable, there may be longer periods of drought and short, intense periods of heavy rain and snow. That according to Dr. Perry Samson, professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan and noted

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Climate Change Resources Now Available in Spanish

This spring the KBS LTER has translated a series of climate change fact sheets into Spanish. Julie Doll, KBS LTER Education and Outreach Coordinator, and Claire Layman, MSU Extension Public Policy Specialist, have worked together for three years with the intent on finding ways to engage farmers, scientists, and decision makers in discussions about the relationship between climate change and agriculture. As a result, a series of informational fact sheets have emerged as outreach components of a research projects funded by Project GREEEN, Michigan’s plant agriculture initiative at MSU, and a

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KBS Provides Climate Change Communication Training for Working Professionals

Why is it that a vast majority of climate scientists agree that the climate is changing and that human activity plays a part in it, yet the American public continues to argue about it? How can the working professionals that LTER sites interact with talk to their stakeholders about climate change – and listen respectfully to their point of view – given the topic's polarizing nature? Julie Doll, KBS LTER Education and Outreach Coordinator partnered with Claire Layman, Michigan State University (MSU) Extension Public Policy Specialist, to create a two-day informational session and interactive

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