Science Guide

I wanted to plug a student production from Michigan State that was actually picked up by PBS, and has won multiple awards:   Dying to be Heard

"Dying to be Heard tells the story of Michigan State University professor Dr. George J. Wallace, who discovered a link between DDT and dying birds on the MSU campus. His work was highlighted in Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring," which helped launch the modern environmental movement.

The film, produced by students and faculty in MSU's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, is based on MSU professor Jim Detjen's editorial "Breaking the 'Silence'" that appeared in the fall 2005 issue of EJ Magazine."

You can watch a short promotional clip at the site above, and I encourage you to check out Detjen's article. Some of the best evidence for the toxicity of DDT came from Michigan, and a quiet birder concerned with  robins laying on his campus, wracked with tremors.  Not only was he one of the first to link DDT and bird deaths, he figured out that it was biomagnification from DDT in earthworms that was the source of the problem.

There is, in fact, a surprisingly large literature of DDT, robins, and campuses--New Hampshire, Vermont and Iowa also kept careful records of deaths and recovery.

Why not do a little investigating for your campus, and ask your PBS station to pick up this show?