Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Leopold Center launches new website

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2011

The Leopold Center’s website has a new look and features designed to better share what’s been learned from the Center’s many projects and partnerships.

New to the site is a central location for items that showcase results of Leopold Center-supported research, programs and in-house projects. The site has more than 150 “Pubs & Papers” including the Leopold Center’s widely quoted “food miles” reports, directories, guides, extension publications, informative presentations and other materials.

Users also can find details about the 453 projects that are part of the Center’s long-running competitive grants program. In 2004, user-friendly summaries of the findings from competitive grant projects were added to the website. Competitive grants now can be tracked from when they were awarded until their completion.

The website, www.leopold.iastate.edu, takes advantage of new technology that offers consistency, more flexibility in maintenance, and the ability to connect content throughout all parts of the site. Web pages are automatically updated when news releases, publications, photos and the Center’s popular On the Ground videos are added.

The website project began in 2009 under the leadership of then Director Jerry DeWitt, who recognized the value of online communication and increased use of the World Wide Web for many different purposes. He said he was pleased to see that progress continued while other changes at the Center were taking place.

“This new website is a great tool,” DeWitt said. “The value of being able to access what others have learned will help many people go forward with their work.”

Other features include:

  • Home page photo featuring a different partner or project every week;
  • Cool Tools page, with links to online calculators, directories, planners and other websites that have been developed with Leopold Center support;
  • “Share” button next to news items allowing users to post a link on Facebook or Twitter accounts, email or bookmark,  and
  • News feeds that will automatically send subscribers links to all news releases and the Center’s monthly and quarterly newsletters.

Leopold Center communications specialist Laura Miller managed the project with support from graduate research assistant Melissa Lamberton and former undergraduate intern Amy Thompson. Juls Design of Ankeny did initial page design; former Leopold Center graphic design interns Tori Watson and Tina Marks supplied additional page design and visual elements. Technical expertise was provided by John Rearick, ISU Brenton Center for Agricultural Instruction and Technology Transfer.

The Leopold Center is interested in user comments about how to improve the site at leocenter@iastate.edu. Like a garden, a website is a work in progress.

Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2011