Educators Chart Course for Great Lakes Curricula

Madison 7/10/2009 — Washburn, Wis., will be a port of call for 15 teachers and environmental educators from around the Great Lakes region July 11-12, as part of an educational workshop cruising Lake Superior aboard the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) research vessel, R/V Lake Guardian. The group is spending a week on the water, conducting research alongside scientists while learning about ecological processes and lake systems. Their goal is to integrate current Great Lakes research into their curricula and programs.

“Understanding Great Lakes and ocean sciences is key to making informed decisions on coastal and ocean management and personal stewardship issues,” said James Lubner, education coordinator for the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, who helped organize the workshop. “COSEE Great Lakes is engaging educators, both formal and informal, in ways that will enable them to more effectively give their students a deeper understanding of our inland seas — the Great Lakes — and their influence on our quality of life and our national prosperity.” Workshop participants came from as far away as Ohio, with three Wisconsin educators representing Elkhart Lake, Spring Valley, and Clintonville.

Highlights of the week include firsthand experiences with Lakes Superior's ecology, geology, geography, weather, and biogeochemical processes. Educators from the Wisconsin and Minnesota Sea Grant programs, along with EPA staff from Chicago and Duluth, Minn., are facilitating the expedition, assisting participants in gathering research data on aquatic organisms and water quality, and helping translate the onboard experience into meaningful classroom lessons with an emphasis on human impacts and parallels between Great Lakes and ocean systems.

The Guardian left Duluth on July 7, followed the North Shore of Lake Superior, crossed to the waters off Michigan's Isle Royale, and then traversed open water to rendezvous with researchers on the Keweenaw Peninsula. On July 11 and 12, it will stop in Washburn, Wis., where participants will kayak in a coastal wetland with representatives of Northland College.

The expedition, “Shipboard and Shoreline Science,” is supported by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Sea Grant Program through the Center for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence (COSEE) Great Lakes.

Washburn Itinerary:

Saturday, July 11

• 4:00 PM Arrive in Washburn; shore leave
• 6:00 PM Dinner
• 8:00 PM Lecture: Sturgeon conservation and restoration

Sunday, July 12

• 8:00 AM Lecture: Coastal wetlands
• 9:00 AM Tour: Fish Creek system (Ashland) with sampling (secchi disks and seining)
• 12:00 PM Lunch (Ashland)
• 2:00 PM Lecture: Lake physics and climate change (Washburn)
• 4:00 PM Sample processing
• 6:00 PM Dinner
• 8:00 PM Depart Washburn

Follow the educators around Lake Superior at http://coseegreatlakes.net/weblog/. More information about the cruise is at http://coseegreatlakes.net/events/shipboard09.