Researchers studying the threats to lake sturgeon are using their findings to teach kids about the environment.

Forests along the North Shore of Lake Superior are dying. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources blame climate change. Other factors include invasive plant species and an abundant whitetail deer population.

Each week, Great Lakes Echo features a photo story about a different Area of Concern designated by the U.S. or Canadian governments in the Great Lakes basin. Guess where the area is located, based on the description of the site.

Let’s invest a significant amount of Great Lakes restoration funding in Detroit and the Detroit River. The whole region suffers if Detroit languishes.
It’s an investment that makes more sense than pouring yet more funds into the region’s most economically advantaged cities.

Some environmental advocates criticize hydraulic fracturing, including the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, which is gearing for its second push to prohibit new horizontal fracking.

Despite what industry officials call an impressive safety track record, this method of natural gas extraction is under fire.

After losing 3 percent of its “green” jobs a year earlier, Michigan became one of the fastest-growing states for environmental employment last year.

Nearly 70 percent of all new power plants built in the Great Lakes region since January 2012 use wind as an energy source, part of a nationwide trend of increasing reliance on wind power.

Great Lakes scientists are using DNA methods to investigate invasive species.

It could help us to better understand where and if they’ll strike next.

Each week, Great Lakes Echo features a photo story about a different Area of Concern designated by the U.S. or Canadian governments in the Great Lakes basin.

Guess where the area is located, based on the description of the site.

More and more, I see a greater dependence on the imperfect science of risk assessment in emerging Great Lakes issues. Studied intensely for years at Harvard University and other leading institutions, risk assessment is something we deal with in many aspects of life even if we don’t stop to think about it.