30 Years of Earthwatch Radio
 

Wisconsin Sea Grant has been turning out two-minute programs on science and the environment for 30 years. September marked the 30th anniversary of “Earthwatch Radio,” and the project is gearing up to take on the challenges of a world where cyberspace is the new frontier for environmental outreach.

The radio project was initiated in 1972 by UW-Madison students and staff at the Sea Grant Institute and the Institute for Environmental Studies. With faculty support, they started the first radio program in the country to concentrate on environmental news, and today it is the longest-running program of its kind in the nation.

The Earthwatch Radio project has gone through significant changes since its first tapes were produced in 1972. In the beginning, a total of 12 stations in Wisconsin subscribed to the service; today it's used by more than 140 outlets across the United States, and from Canada to Costa Rica. Reel-to-reel tapes have been replaced by digital compact discs, and the people who edit the recordings of interviews don't cut tape with razor blades anymore; they cut and splice sound bites with audio editing software.

The Internet has changed the project as well. Now people can read the scripts by subscribing to an email service that distributes them daily. They can also find them by logging onto the program's Web site.

Earthwatch Radio has received a number of honors over the years, including awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, the national Sea Grant network, and the United Nations Environment Programme. (The radio program was named to the UN's Global 500 Honor Roll in 1992.) In addition, the program achieved a long-time goal in 2002 of having the name "Earthwatch" registered as a trademark of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents for use in radio programming.

But Richard Hoops, Sea Grant radio producer and principal investigator on the Earthwatch project, says those accomplishments are dwarfed by the number of talented students the program has cultivated through writing internships.

“It’s rewarding for me to learn about the fates of students after they’ve graduated,” said Hoops. “They’ve gone on to great careers, and it’s good to know the job meant something to them.”

Indeed, just as students started the program back in 1972, they remain its lifeblood today. Earthwatch relies on students to give the program a fresh perspective. Likewise, the students rely on Earthwatch to provide them with unique skills and professional experience.

“It is a rare and invaluable opportunity to interview scientists about cutting-edge research and share it with the public,” said Amber Rose Fonzen, an Earthwatch writer who graduated in spring 2002 and is now an Americorps VISTA volunteer in Philadelphia, Penn.

Aside from serving as an educational program and a training lab for students, Earthwatch fills an important role on the UW-Madison campus, according to Peyton Smith, assistant vice chancellor in the Provost’s Office.

“Programs like Earthwatch help translate what’s happening at the university into the public consciousness,” Smith said. “They increase public understanding of important issues and that leads to greater science literacy.”

Smith, the first student working on the project back in 1972 and later communications coordinator for Wisconsin Sea Grant, also said the program fulfills “a cherished, core value” of the university—the Wisconsin Idea.

“Outreach is a central part of our mission,” he said. “Earthwatch is one means of facilitating a two-way flow of information from the university to the people of Wisconsin and back again.”

-- Jill Ladwig

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Last updated 20 December 2002 by Karl
All contents copyright 2000 University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute

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