Sharing Sustainable Lake Practices through the Web and Social Media
Today’s Monday Maine Maven is D. Whitney King, Miselis professor of chemistry at Colby College. Dr. King teaches courses on environmental chemistry and analytical chemistry.
Dr. King also runs the King research group. The King group develops and builds analytical instruments for ultra-trace analysis of metals and nutrients in natural waters. These analytical systems/methods are used by a number of research groups, both in the U.S. and internationally, providing interesting collaborations for the King research group at Colby.
In 2002, King co-founded Waterville Analytical to meet the commercial demand for FIA instrumentation.
Dr. King is also involved in the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC). The MLRC serves as a research laboratory, field station, conference space, and teaching resource for the environmental science programs of Colby College in the Belgrade Lakes region. The environmental science programs provide research and teaching resources in support of the MLRC mission through the National Science Foundation funded Sustainable Science project, part of a statewide sustainability science initiative.
A multidisciplinary team of Colby faculty representing the departments of biology, chemistry, economics, geology, and the environmental studies and science, technology, and society programs work through the MLRC to engage citizens, lake associations, the Department of Environmental Protection, and others in studying and protecting local lakes.
Colby also provides a cadre of environmental interns who work throughout the academic year and during the summer to help support MLRC projects. The interns gain valuable practical experience as they work to promote sustainable lake practices. Students learn about the interplay of environmental research to understand lake problems and the importance of educating the citizens to shape policy and sustainable lake practices.
1. You have worked with organizations like the Maine Lakes Resource Center to spread the word about protecting our local lakes. How have you used the Web and social media to spread the word?
For the King group, we use Web tools like WordPress to coordinate our research efforts, post data, and provide a research blog.
MLRC and the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) are both using Facebook, but we are not using this tool at Colby as part of our project.
Click here to find the MLRC on Facebook and the BRCA here.
2. Do you have other methods of communicating with your stakeholders?
Email and actual one-on-one communication are critical to our communication methods. Several Colby students are working at the MLRC to specifically engage with the community.
We have very cool weather and video servers that get many thousands of hits a month. You can see the MLRC weather gauge by clicking here.
Our long term goal is to use these offerings to draw interest to our conservation content.
3. What is your long-range goal for expanding your communications using traditional and newer methods of outreach?
Ideally, I would like a rich Web presence that drives interest by providing superior content on how to preserve Maine Lakes.