Northern Michigan Plant Protest

Educating students about the environment can have unintended consequences: They can become more protective of the environment on their very own campus.

So it was this past week at Northern Michigan University. Students there are challenging the Marquette-Mich.-based institution's plan to build new dorms because the construction would destroy a native plant research project on campus. Student representatives met with NMU's president and brought along a petition bearing 900 names and information on future plans for the four-year-old native plant project. NMU offers majors in both environmental conservation and environmental science.

And the whole thing may be more than a bit ironic since the tag line on NMU's Web site is "Northern. Naturally."