As the 38th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, a new online tool is giving educators, students and citizens everywhere the chance to test their "green IQ."

The "Sustainability: Learn It - Live It" tool was built by researchers at the Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS), an interdisciplinary research, education and outreach center of the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) at the University of Michigan.

The tool, as well as information about the April 20 U-M lecture by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, can be found at http://css.snre.umich.edu/facts.

The University of Michigan invited the Dalai Lama to give a special campus lecture as part of Earth Day festivities. CSS's web site will stream the lecture live beginning at 2 p.m.

The launch of the "Learn It - Live It" tool builds on the most recent edition of the CSS Factsheet series. The 15, one-page documents - available as downloads through the CSS site - are researched by scientists but written for citizens, consumers, educators, and advocates. They present brief but complete pictures of environmental issues as well as sustainable solutions and alternatives.

"Current U.S. consumption patterns pose sustainability challenges. The í¢â‚¬ËœLearn It - Live It' tool presents the hard science behind many of those sustainability questions in an accessible and engaging way," said Gregory A. Keoleian, an associate professor at SNRE and co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems. "The tool offers something for everyone, but is especially useful to educators and their students."

In the tool's "Learn It" section, users learn facts about patterns of use and the resulting impacts on our modern society. The facts are divided into eight themes: municipal solid waste, buildings, climate, water, energy, food, materials and transportation.

In the quiz section, users test their grasp of the facts found on the Factsheet and "Learn It" sections of the CSS web site.

In the "Live It" section, users learn specific behaviors to adopt in order to lower their environmental footprints and to save natural resources.

In addition to its location on the CSS site, the tool is receiving special mention this year on the Earth Day Network's web site. The network is the official keeper of Earth Day, which had its beginnings on April 22, 1970. Find the mention of the tool at http://ww2.earthday.net/resources.

The Factsheet topics are: greenhouse gases; climate change: policy and mitigation; climate change: science and impacts; U.S. energy system; U.S. food system; personal transportation; U.S. municipal solid waste; U.S. material use; photovoltaic energy; commercial buildings; residential buildings; U.S. renewable energy; wind energy; U.S. water supply and distribution; and U.S. wastewater treatment.

About the Center for Sustainable Systems:
CSS advances concepts of sustainability through interdisciplinary research and education. CSS collaborates with diverse stakeholders to develop and apply lifecycle-based models and sustainability metrics for systems that meet societal needs. CSS promotes tools and knowledge that support the design, evaluation and improvement of complex systems. It has completed more than 50 research projects on topics such as renewable energy, hydrogen infrastructure, transportation, green buildings, consumer products and packaging.

Supporting the Factsheets:
If your company or foundation would like to sponsor these important efforts, please contact the School of Natural Resources and Environment's Development Office at snre.development@umich.edu.

About the Dalai Lama's Special Wege Lecture:
Tickets for the 2 p.m. lecture Sunday, April 20, are sold out. If you do not have a ticket, the event can be viewed in two other ways: online through a web-streamed simulcast of his speech or the Michigan Channel (channel 22), which is available to Comcast cable customers in Washtenaw County, home to Ann Arbor. The link to the web stream, which is inactive until the time of the speech, is: http://umtv-live.rs.itd.umich.edu/pres/dalailama.asx.

About the School of Natural Resources and Environment:
The School of Natural Resources and Environment's overarching objective is to contribute to the protection of the earth's resources and the achievement of a sustainable society. Through research, teaching and outreach, faculty, staff and students are devoted to generating knowledge and developing policies, techniques and skills to help practitioners manage and conserve natural and environmental resources to meet the full range of human needs on a sustainable basis.