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Lake Guardian is currently in its winter home along the docks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses the vessel to collect data on water quality during the warmer months and has done so for more than 40 years. And every year since her 1991, a group of lucky educators have flocked to the ship to call it her home for nine days.
The ship leaves the dock each April and tours each of the Great Lakes with a variety of research goals in mind. Each summer, a different lake features for teachers. last year, Onboard science workshop I took the teachers around Lake Ontario. Educators will tour Lake Erie in 2024.
Teachers must be from one of the eight Great Lakes states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or New York). Qualified educators teach grades 5 through 12 and must include a personal statement and letters of recommendation. The submission deadline for next summer is Monday, February 19th at noon.
Life at Guardian Lake
A relatively small dredger with an altitude of 180 feet, the research vessel is white with accents of lettering, lines, and sapphire blue stripes. She has one bright green stripe running diagonally upwards from her hull towards the bow and command center, and around it are two thin stripes of blue with the same accent. Once inside, everything looks like painted steel.
EPA’s Lake Guardian research vessel sampling the Great Lakes. (Credit: Environmental Protection Agency)
Crew members, researchers, and educators are crammed into small bunks with one to three other roommates. This ship can accommodate 42 people. 15 are teachers, 14 are crew members, and the rest are scientists and Sea Grant staff. Nate Drag of New York Sea Grant says his experience was intense but exhilarating. Lesson plans are created between labs because there is always something going on. Teachers and scientists were divided into different groups and rotated.
“Our main goal is to educate kids from that experience,” Drag said, adding that some of the participants are not formal educators. Some worked at nature centers (such as the Michigan DNR) or museums, so they had other ways to incorporate research into their programs.
Last year I had three different research projects. One was to better understand zooplankton communities at different depths. The species called Mysis relicta, or Mysis shrimp, is very sensitive to light and only emerges to feed at night. They can surface and feed on phytoplankton near the surface. This meant that teachers and researchers had to take samples under red lighting on the deck of a boat. Normal lighting will be too bright and will scare the shrimp back into the depths.
The next project was led by Dr. Greg Boyer of the State University of New York School of Environmental Science and Forestry and Dr. Dominic Delminio of Keuka College. They observed phytoplankton, small plants eaten by many species, including the Mysis shrimp. Specifically, they wanted to see if any types of cyanobacteria or potentially harmful algae were present among the phytoplankton, and catalog all the different types of algae and phytoplankton found. Ta. Drag said they put out large nets and pulled them up from various depths. Then filter them. The teachers went into the lab, used a microscope to identify different species, and tried to write the information into a big data set.
The final project was to study the benthic community, which is the organisms that live in the sediments on the bottom hundreds of meters of Lake Ontario. They sent in a large metal shovel-like device called a ponner grab, Drag said. It scoops up sediment from the bottom of the lake, pulls it up, and dumps it into a large tray. Teachers then rinse and filter it to identify and catalog the different species found in the sediment.
Educator experience
Beth Schoonover, a high school science teacher at Stow Munroe Falls High School in Stowe, Ohio, participated in the program last year. She said her nine days on board were tough but rewarding as she got to learn and participate in “real science”.
“I will meet 130 students that day, and if I can talk to them about “real science,” empathize with them, and have them put “real science” into practice, it might be an opportunity for some of them. “No, that’s what you want,” Schoonover said.
Schoonover threaded his students through all the links in the food chain and what happens when something runs out due to overfishing or pollution. She also took her students on field trips to the lake. Several students made nets to catch plankton using bottles and pantyhose. She also noted that Sea Grant sent her a hydraulic testing kit to help incorporate the Lake Guardian experience into the classroom.
Carly Ziegler, an educator in Madison, Wisconsin, ran the program four years ago when she was still a middle school science teacher. Currently, she works at Edgewood Campus Her School and Edgewood College, and teaches at Summer Her Camp. She still uses her experience at Guardian of the Lake to inform her students. In fact, on the morning of this interview, Ziegler received his equipment from Sea Grant.
“They are [Sea Grant] We have a whole library of resources that you can check out and use,” Ziegler said. “What I borrowed today is a kit for students to design their own underwater robots. It uses a small motor, a hanger, duct tape, and foam. It’s very simple, but the whole kit is there. , you don’t have to run around the hardware store and pick up random bits and bobs like you’ve been doing for 10 years. You can borrow this kit, check it out for a week, have your students work on the project, and then return it.”
Ziegler said that once you’re trained in one of the company’s programs, you can check out the equipment online and it will be shipped to you free of charge. Sea Grant also includes a free shipping label, so there are no return costs. She said access to this interactive equipment makes a huge difference in how students learn and engage with science. How “when something matters to students,” like the health of the Great Lakes, that makes science meaningful.
“I hear things all the time like, ‘Zigler, it’s like we’re doing real science,'” Ziegler said of his students. “I think we don’t give enough credit to students who can do really difficult things. By the time they reach middle school, their brains are functioning at a very high level and they can really understand a lot of things. And so it’s this huge window of opportunity that pops up and shows you that your actions will make a difference.”
Check out more news on Great Lakes Now:
Kurt Wolf talks about the future of water management
Tracking human remains in shipwreck using environmental DNA
Featured image: Beth Schoonover students participate in a water quality field trip at West Branch Reservoir State Park Reservoir in Ohio in 2023 (Credit: Beth Schoonover)
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