Volunteers

Off-road vehicles have been allowed on state forest land since 2018. But sometimes they blaze their own trails. Now, things are at a breaking point.

Thirty-four teenagers spent the summer volunteering at London Health Sciences Centre.

Cigarette butts are one of the most common kind of plastic pollution found on Great Lakes beaches.

By Donté Smith 
Butterfly populations are in decline across the continental U.S., dropping by 22% between 2000 and 2020 according to a study in the journal Science. Almost a third of the 342 species studied have seen their numbers fall by more than half.  To help combat that trend, the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids, Michigan, launched its Great Lakes Rare Butterfly Program in 2021 to protect the region’s most threatened species.

The post John Ball Zoo Fights for Great Lakes’ Rarest Butterflies first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.

But Michigan's lack of statewide septic regulations makes dealing with it a little more complicated. Efforts in Lansing to establish a septic code have fallen short, but there are bills currently in legislative committees that would deal with the issue. The state currently relies on county and local governments to create and enforce their own regulations.

Cases in Benzie County, the Upper Peninsula and elsewhere demonstrate that small communities are not immune from big theft, and that the betrayal is deeply felt.

The Ripley Reunion returned on the long weekend, bringing together thousands of residents and visitors for a four-day celebration of community. Held every 10 years, the reunion ran from Thursday, July 31, to Monday, Aug. 4. It was considered a resounding success, with an estimated 10,000 people passing through the beer gardens over the weekend. […]

Statewide campaigns to get various questions on the 2026 ballot in Michigan are collecting signatures — including for three proposed state constitutional amendments.

In 2014, a group of botanists discovered that a very rare plant native to the Kankakee River in Illinois, had vanished from its only known native habitat in the world. That set off a quest to bring back the missing Midwestern flower.

ine volunteer Coastal Conservation Youth Corps spent time identifying and removing invasive plants and removing plastic waste and tires along the Lake Huron shoreline in Goderich, Ontario. Read the full […]

More than 70 volunteers joined Save the River’s Trash Free River Days Weekend to remove 1,501 pounds of trash from the Upper St. Lawrence River last week. The volunteers retrieved […]

What would happen if our devices were alive? Would it change the way we treat them? One researcher in Chicago wanted to find out. So she made a smartwatch that has to be fed and watered to work.