Data buoys, also known as weather buoys, are loved by boaters, swimmers, paddlers, fishermen and anyone who uses the water recreationally or for work. Knowing weather and wave conditions before going out on the water makes boating and other activities safer. Many people use our website and follow our Two Yellow Buoys on Twitter to get information on water and air temperature, wind speed and direction, wave height and more about southern Lake Michigan. While the buoys are out on the water, we host real-time data on our website for nearshore conditions off the coasts of Michigan City, Indiana, and Waukegan, Wilmette and Winthrop Harbor, Illinois.
Rich Armstrong of BoatUS Magazine highlighted these “weather watchdogs” and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s Jay Beugly—our buoy handler—in his article “Data Buoys: Sentinels of the Sea,” as part of the December 2019 issue.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and Purdue Extension have developed County Planning Dashboards to help community leaders and residents better understand their natural resources at the county level, where many land-use decisions are made. These models are based on the work of several collaborators as part of the Tipping Point Planner decision support system. Dashboard profiles are available for all counties within Great Lakes states.
Lydia Utley, Kara Salazar and Dan Walker will walk participants through the new dashboards and discuss how Tipping Point Planner can support planning efforts and decision-making in your local community.
When: December 19, 2019, Noon – 1pm ET
Where: This program will be streamed live and can be viewed from multiple host sites across Indiana, or you can watch it from your personal computer. Register to receive the link.
Who: All individuals involved in local government planning (planning department staff, county commissioners, city council members and plan commission and Board of Zoning Appeals members)
For questions or if you need an accommodation to participate in this program, prior to the event, please contact your host site or email Tamara Ogle at togle@purdue.edu.
Host Site Locations
Purdue Extension DeKalb County Office
Elysia Rodgers
215 E. 9th Street, Suite 300, Auburn, IN 46706
260-925-2562, eberry@purdue.edu
Hendricks County 4-H Fairgrounds
Jeff Pell
1900 E. Main St, Room B/C Danville, IN 46122
317-745-9260, jpell@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Howard County Office
Mathias Ingle
105 Mulberry Street, Kokomo, IN 46901
765-456-2313, rmingle@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Jasper County Office
Bryan Overstreet
2530 N McKinley Ave, Rensselaer, IN 47978
219-866-5741, boverstreet@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Knox County Office
Valerie Clingerman
4259 N. Purdue Road, Vincennes, IN 47591
812-882-3509, clingerman@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension LaGrange County
Steve Engleking
114 W Michigan St, Ste 10, LaGrange, IN 46761
260-499-6334, sengleking@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Lake County Office
Janet Reed
2291 N. Main Street, Crown Point, IN 46307
219-754-3240, reedjm@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension LaPorte County Office
Mary Foell
2857 W. State Road 2, Ste A, LaPorte, IN 46350
219-324-9407, mfoell@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Monroe County Office
Amy Thompson
3400 S. Walnut Street, Bloomington, IN 47401
812-349-2575, afthompson@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Morgan County Office
Michele Jones
180 S. Main St, Ste 229, Martinsville, IN 46151
765-342-1010, jonesm@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Randolph County Office
Amy Alka
1885 S. US Highway 27, Winchester, IN 47394
765-584-2271, aalka@purdue.edu
Purdue Extension Scott County Office
Tom Springstun
1 E McClain Ave, Ste G30, Scottsburg, IN 47170
812-752-8450, tsprings@purdue.edu
Warrick County Courthouse
Amanda Mosiman
107 W. Locust St, Ste 308, Boonville, IN 47601
812-897-6100, bailey1@purdue.edu
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
The Red Oak Rain Garden (RORG) was the first rain garden on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, and the two red oak trees that the garden’s name honors—fondly called the RORG sisters—have just turned 100 years old. To commemorate this occasion, the RORG team, led by Stormwater Specialist Eliana Brown of University of Illinois Extension, threw a surprise birthday party and created a video to celebrate the milestone and highlight the importance of green infrastructure in stormwater management.
The two red oak trees work with the 9,000 plants in the rain garden to soak up roughly 10,000 gallons of water per year. Rain gardens like the Red Oak Rain Garden, built in 2006, help reduce polluted stormwater runoff and flooding.
“This is really important,” said Brown, “because in our cities and towns, we create more impervious surfaces [like roads, roofs and parking lots]. They’re really great at doing things like letting us drive on them, but they shed off water, and so they’re not so good at soaking up water. So, we end up with a lot more water, and our streams just really aren’t designed to handle all of that, and it creates some problems with water quality. Rain gardens are a great way to combat that and make things better.”
The RORG team is managing a renovation of the rain garden, involving design and build phases of the project to help improve both aesthetics and functionality. The Red Oak Rain Garden website describes the purpose of the garden on UIUC’s campus: RORG provides flood protection, improves water quality and serves as a model for ecologically healthy landscapes. Prior to the garden, rainstorms limited sidewalk use and impaired the red oak. The updated design enhances the garden’s ability to absorb rainwater in a beautiful, educational way.
Layne Knoche worked on the landscape design, and Tony Heath completed the engineering design. Kate Gardiner organized the whimsical birthday celebration for the RORG sisters.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
If the next generation of young people is going to care for our environment properly as they grow older, then they need to learn more about local waters and how to protect them, and that is one area where Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) hopes to make a difference. As part of our education and outreach efforts, Jay Beugly, an aquatic ecologist with IISG and the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, works with local schools to teach students about everything from water quality and macroinvertebrates to fish and other aquatic wildlife populations.
In this new video, Mary Cutler, a naturalist and environmental educator with Tippecanoe County Parks and Recreation, talks about working with Beugly to teach learners of all ages about the health of the Wabash River. In August, fifth-graders from Battle Ground Intermediate School participated in the Battle Ground River WRATS (Wabash Rafting with Adventurous Tomahawk Scientists) program. The students took a rafting trip from Mascouten Park to Fort Ouiatenon, learning about the history, geography, wildlife and water quality of the Wabash River along the way. Cutler, Beugly and other scientists completed fun, educational activities with the students to finish their rafting day.
“We’re so fortunate over the years to have partnered with Sea Grant, and specifically with Jay Beugly, to extend some of the environmental outreach that connects to tributaries, larger waterways and the fishery populations in our community,” Cutler said. “Through the expertise of Jay and some of his other colleagues, they’ve brought information about how the river health is reflected in the populations of the macroinvertebrates and the fishes that we find in those small tributaries and the larger waterways.”
If you would like to connect with IISG about educational opportunities for K-12 students, please contact Education Coordinator Terri Hallesy.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
Solutions work best when devised and implemented by the communities they will impact. This is the foundational principle for Purdue Extension and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s Sustainable Communities Extension planning efforts, which include Conservation through Community Leadership (CCL) and Tipping Point Planner. The programs aim to support communities to facilitate, implement and maintain locally-driven natural resource management strategies through collaborative environmental planning.
“The Extension teams typically work with local government entities, such as town councils, plan commissions and parks departments, in collaboration with interested stakeholders within the community,” said Kara Salazar, assistant program leader and Extension specialist for sustainable communities.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) is having a good year in terms of recognition by our peers. Adding to the list of awards recently won by IISG specialists, Brian Miller and Irene Miles were distinguished at a Sea Grant conference in Savannah, Georgia in October. Together, they have over 40 years of combined service to the program.
Brian Miller, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s former director, was honored with the William Q. Wick Visionary Career Leadership Award. The award recognizes outstanding career achievement, leadership, vision and contributions to Sea Grant Extension through programming or administration by a Sea Grant extension professional.
The Sea Grant Extension Assembly presents the Wick Award biennially—this year, on October 16, at the Sea Grant Extension Assembly, Communicator and Research Coordinator Conference.
Miller joined IISG in 1994 as the extension program leader and served as the program director for 10 years until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated for his tenure leading IISG administration, but also his regional and national impact.
The Wick Award presentation highlighted Miller’s success in growing IISG’s programs and personnel by developing strong partnerships with local and regional organizations and agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes National Program Office. These partners are able to reach broader audiences—from local residents to regional decision makers—with assistance from Sea Grant. Through Miller’s innovative efforts, IISG has become a leader in providing outreach and developing programs on issues and priorities such as emerging contaminants, data accessibility and Great Lakes literacy.
Miller was also honored as one of the founders of Sea Grant Academy. The academy kicked off in 2005 as an opportunity for Sea Grant extension specialists to engage in two weeks of training and professional development, benefiting their work and the work of all Sea Grant programs at large. Since then, it has become a Sea Grant institution, and the training opportunity has expanded to include communicators and other new Sea Granters around the network.
On the same night Miller took home the Wick Award, the national Sea Grant Communicators Network honored Irene Miles with the 2019 Communications Service Award. Presented every two years, the award recognizes an individual’s contribution to the Sea Grant network and to the profession, whether that person is recently retired or still actively contributing.
This year, several worthy nominations were put forward and judges reported experiencing great difficulty in selecting a winner from a pool of talented and deserving candidates.
The judges recognized Miles, who has been with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant since 2001 and now serves as the strategic communication coordinator, for success in her craft as well as contributions to IISG and national Sea Grant communication efforts. The award presenters noted that she is an “unsung hero” with a history of innovative communication campaigns.
During her time with Sea Grant, Miles has won several awards for communication projects and has reached millions of people with messaging about environmental issues, with the goal of informing and helping spark behavior change to create a more sustainable world. One of her most notable projects involved working with the National Sea Grant Office to create a 15-second public service announcement that aired on the CBS Jumbotron “Super Screen” in New York City’s Times Square. The “Don’t Flush Medicine” message ran for four months in 2011 and 2012, with an estimated 500,000 people going through Times Square every day and one million people crowding the streets over New Year’s Eve.
Miles brings visibility to IISG in all she does, from science stories and annual reporting to educational exhibits and social media campaigns. She knows the IISG program and specialists better than anyone and continues to do high-quality work celebrating our achievements.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) staff have been extra busy lately helping southern Lake Michigan communities and other Great Lakes communities address coastal issues through research, outreach and education, and their work has not gone unnoticed. Sea Granters working on pollution prevention, social science and communication have received three awards recognizing their excellence in bringing the latest science to those who can best use the information, empowering people to solve problems in sustainable ways.
Early Career Award
As part of the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network meeting, Sarah Zack was distinguished as recipient of the 2019 Great Lakes Sea Grant Network Early Career Award, presented in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan in September. Zack holds a dual role in pollution prevention, working for both Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and University of Illinois Extension. Since taking on the position of pollution prevention specialist in 2016, she has participated in nearly 60 outreach or education events, reaching nearly 5,000 Great Lakes residents and decision makers, scientists, veterinary professionals and students with the pollution prevention message.
“I was honored to be nominated for the award by my program administration, and shocked and grateful when I won, because I work with so many amazing, effective Sea Grant staff from programs around the Great Lakes,” said Zack. “It feels really good to be recognized, but it’s definitely the strength of my partners that make what we do so fun and meaningful. I couldn’t do it alone!”
The Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant medicine collection program hit its 10-year anniversary in 2018 under Zack’s leadership. During that time, over 118 tons—or 236,000 pounds—of medicine have been collected through community collection programs supported by IISG. Since 2016, seven new permanent programs have been established, bringing the total of engaged communities to 54.
Since 2017, Zack has also played a critical role in organizing the annual Emerging Contaminants in the Environment Conference, cohosted by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. It has grown from a one-day conference in 2016, with about 60 attendees, 15 presentations and 11 posters, to a two-day conference with over 100 attendees, 32 presentations, 15 posters and an expert discussion panel in 2019.
The Great Lakes Sea Grant Network (GLSGN) awards are organized and given by the GLSGN program leaders to recognize individual Sea Grant professionals who have shown noteworthy enthusiasm, performance, accomplishments and impact during their Sea Grant careers. Great Lakes Sea Grant individual achievement awards are the only Great Lakes Sea Grant-sponsored awards to recognize individual accomplishments during Sea Grant careers. Recipients of the GLSGN Early Career Award have worked for Sea Grant less than seven years at the time of the award.
Silver Medal for Superior Service
As part of the Zephyr Great Lakes Remediation Team, Caitie Nigrelli won a 2018 Silver Medal for Superior Service Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, presented at the U.S. EPA National Honor Awards in Washington, D.C. in July. This Great Lakes Legacy Act team successfully remediated the wetlands below the former Zephyr Oil Refinery in Michigan. The team was successful in remediating legacy contamination and restoring native habitat within this Great Lakes Area of Concern (AOC), and contributing to the future removal of BUIs within the AOC.
The team was honored for exemplary problem-solving and project management to successfully remediate an extremely toxic contaminated sediment site under extreme pressure and tight timelines. They also won the Western Dredging Association 2019 Environmental Excellence Award, presented in Chicago in June.
Nigrelli works for University of Illinois Extension and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.
APEX Award
Every year, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant publishes the ways in which the program has impacted communities and the region through long-term projects addressing critical coastal issues. The impacts booklet published last year, Impacts 2017: Two Great States Caring for One Great Lake, has won a 2019 APEX Award of Excellence in the category of 1-2 Person-Produced Annual Reports. IISG’s strategic communicator, Irene Miles, and graphic designer, Joel Davenport, produced the booklet together.
“This is a well-deserved award and is evidence of how hard-working, dedicated, and excellent our communications team is,” said Stuart Carlton, IISG’s assistant director. “It’s also evidence of the strong impact that Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant has had in the area, helping people use science to live a more resilient life.”
APEX awards are based on distinction in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. The awards are given each year by Communication Concepts to recognize outstanding publication work in a variety of fields.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue University Extension.
Master of Science (M.S.) Research Assistantship on Social Dimensions of Aquaculture Production in the Great Lakes Region
We are recruiting an MS student to study the social dimensions of aquaculture production in the Great Lakes region as part of a large, interdisciplinary research and extension project. The goal of the project is to understand the barriers to increasing aquaculture production throughout the Great Lakes region. The student will be advised by Dr. Stuart Carlton, housed in the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, and will work closely with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) aquaculture team.
The student is expected to start in the fall semester of 2020, though it may be possible to start in the late summer of 2020. Applications are due on January 15, 2020.
This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in the social dimensions of aquaculture or other natural resources, who wants to expand their career options in science, resource management and/or extension.
Inclusion and Ethics
At IISG, we strive to be an inclusive organization, and we strongly encourage women, minorities and people from traditionally underrepresented groups to apply. For more on our commitment to inclusion, please see our values statement. In addition, the Carlton Lab is guided by the World Economic Forum Code of Ethics for Researchers (background at “A code of ethics to get scientists talking” and “About the Code“).
What will the student do?
Travel throughout the Midwest to conduct in-person interviews with aquaculture producers to understand their perceptions about fish farming as an industry and their trust in and use of different information sources
Perform a social network analysis on a subset of aquaculture producers to understand how information flows through the system
Communicate research findings to key stakeholders to help improve aquaculture outreach and extension in the Great Lakes region
Work as part of the larger project team on other research and outreach tasks as needed
What will the student gain?
A world-class education from Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources
Hands-on research experience in cognitive interviewing and social network analysis
Exposure to other quantitative and qualitative social science research methods
A chance to improve science communication skills by working with the award-winning IISG Communication team to share their findings with relevant stakeholders
A chance to interact with aquaculture stakeholders and Sea Grant staff throughout the Great Lakes region
A two-year assistantship including a salary of $20,920 per year, a tuition waiver, and health insurance
Minimum Requirements
A bachelor’s degree with a major or minor from a relevant science or social science discipline OR a bachelor’s degree with significant relevant experience
GPA 3.2 or equivalent
Good communication and writing skills
A strong interest in collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving
Ability and willingness to work in team settings and independently
Preferred Qualifications
Familiarity with aquaculture
Experience interacting with stakeholders and communicating science
Experience with social science research methods, potentially including interviews, surveys, or other methods
Application
Before applying, please contact Stuart Carlton directly to discuss your research interests, academic and related work experience, and career goals. To apply, submit an electronic application. Review of applications will begin on January 16, 2020 and the position will be open until filled. Purdue University is an equal opportunity affirmative action employer.
More Information
Contact Stuart Carlton, Assistant Director, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University (email: carltons@purdue.edu; phone: 765-494-3726).
West Lafayette-Lafayette, Indiana is a metro area of over 174,000 people centrally located between Indianapolis, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois. It is an easy place to live with a high quality of life, good schools, safe neighborhoods, and excellent public facilities and amenities, including over 40 parks and extensive trail systems. We are home to three farmers markets from May to October, year-long festivals and community events, and Purdue Convocations, one of the oldest collegiate performing arts divisions that has brought excellent concerts, lectures and performances to campus since 1902.
Emma Young’s staring down a deadline these days as she wraps up her research and types away at her dissertation.
To be fair, it’s self-imposed. The biology doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri–St. Louis is aiming to be ready to defend her work exploring parasite dynamics in an assemblage of neotropical birds in Gamboa, Panama, before the end of the semester.
“It’s hard for me to imagine something stopping me,” Young said confidently.
She already has plans for the new year, and the last thing she wants is the dissertation still hanging over her.
The program provides educational and professional experience for graduate students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting them through a one-year paid fellowship with a host in either the legislative or executive branch.
“There isn’t really a big aquatic component to my research,” Young said. “I felt like this odd duck coming into this policy program. A lot of people I know who have had this fellowship, you see pictures of them standing on boats holding fish or they’re wearing waders out in wetlands, stuff like that.”
But any concerns she might have had about being out of her habitat were put to rest after conversations with people she knows who have gone through the program. All the fellows are likely to be navigating new terrain from their graduate research – and on land.
“A lot of what I’m going to be doing is taking a large breadth of scientific topics and distilling it down for legislators or for members of the public or some combination thereof,” Young said. “I love doing that. That’s my favorite thing.”
IISG is hiring an experienced communication coordinator to oversee communication and lead efforts to develop and maintain programs and products that promote science-based knowledge and highlight IISG’s research, outreach and education efforts. Learn more at the #linkinbio.
On the same night Miller took home the Wick Award, the national Sea Grant Communicators Network honored 
As part of the Zephyr Great Lakes Remediation Team, Caitie Nigrelli won a 2018 Silver Medal for Superior Service Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, presented at the 
Every year, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant publishes the ways in which the program has impacted communities and the region through long-term projects addressing critical coastal issues. The impacts booklet published last year, 
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