STRATEGIC OVERVIEW

NCSE's public education strategic goal  is to provide access to a comprehensive source of understandable science-based information on the Internet. To achieve this, in 2003, the Council catalyzed the creation and operation of the  Environmental Information Coalition (EIC) for the  many organizations, agencies, institutions, and experts who can contribute to achieving this goal. NCSE is the secretariat to the EIC.The Environmental Information Coalition is building the  Earth Portal  to provide clear, intuitively presented, science-based resources that help make sense of the issues from air pollution to zoology, from back yards to oceans. The Earth Portal will be part of technology partner  ManyOne Networks ' Digital Universe .

The first component of Earth Portal launched in Fall 2006, is the  Encyclopedia of Earth . The Encyclopedia  is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by expert authors in non-technical language for a general audience. Articles are independently reviewed by other expert Topic Editors . The scope of the Encyclopedia of Earth  is the environment broadly defined, with particular emphasis on the interaction between society and the natural spheres of the Earth. Authors and Topic Editors are experts in their fields as judged by their peers and by their track record of distinguished research, teaching, writing, training, and public outreach. This community of scholars create and maintain the Encyclopedia of Earth via a specially adapted "wiki" - an online tool that allows experts to collectively add and edit web content. Unlike other, well-known wikis, such as Wikipedia, access is restricted to approved experts and all content is reviewed and approved by Topic Editors prior to being published from the wiki to public Encyclopedia. Revisions to existing articles are also done on the author's wiki, and when approved they become the current version at the public site. This process produces a constantly evolving, continuously updated reference.

As part of its public education goal, the National Council for Science and the Environment provides free public access to the environmental reports of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS, part of the Library of Congress, prepares its reports for the U.S. Congress. CRS products undergo review for accuracy and objectivity and contain non-technical information that can be very useful to people interested in environmental policy. CRS does not itself provide these documents to the general public. Although CRS documents are prepared specifically for Congress and not widely distributed, their distribution is not protected by law or copyright. NCSE is committed to expanding, maintaining and updating its database of reports, making them available and searchable for the public.  The NLE currently posts over 1,600 CRS reports on environmental and related topics.