Fourteen teachers from Illinois and Indiana are hard at work developing new science lessons that incorporate real-time data from the Michigan City buoy after a training workshop held last week at Purdue North Central.
During the day-long workshop, IISG’s education and research teams, along with Purdue University’s Cary Troy
, introduced teachers to the environmental monitoring buoy, the data it collects, and how researchers are using the data to better understand the nearshore waters of Lake Michigan.
The highlight of the workshop for many was the boat ride four miles into Lake Michigan to see the buoy first-hand—in smaller groups due to the size of the boat. The trips also gave teachers the opportunity to talk more with researchers and staff from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources(DNR) about the buoy and other data collection methods used to monitor fisheries, understand lake dynamics, and improve water safety.
The teachers will work together to develop at least six curriculum activities that improve STEM education—science, technology, engineering, and math—and boost understanding of Great Lakes issues. These won’t be complete till early next year, but the teachers already have big ideas for how to integrate the buoy data into their classrooms.
Several hope to use information on wind speed and water currents to improve their weather units. Others plan to use data collected by the buoy’s thermistor chain, which measures temperatures at different depths, to pinpoint the likely habitats of specific fish species and determine whether invaders like Asian carp could make a home in Lake Michigan. Some even expressed interest in having students compare buoy data with environmental characteristics collected on land to better understand solar radiation and seasonal changes.
The final lesson plans will be available on the IISG website.
Funding for the workshop was provided in part by the Indiana DNR Lake Michigan Coastal Program. Special thanks to the DNR staff at the Michigan City field office for taking the participants out on the lake.
In a world of streets, parking lots, and sidewalks, rain gardens can be a place for stormwater to go besides flowing into sewers and ultimately, nearby lakes and rivers. As it flows towards waterbodies, rainwater picks up pollutants like pesticides and fertilizers along the way. Precipitation that is absorbed into rain gardens recharges groundwater 30 percent more than even that of a typical lawn.
Besides that, rain gardens are pretty.
The Southern Lake Michigan Rain Garden Manual is a how-to for homeowners, landscape architects, city planners, and anyone interested in creating a garden to “absorb the storm.” This booklet is chock full of information–from choosing a location to designing and installing a rain garden to care and maintenance. You can find a plant list, including those suited for shade and clay soils, and sample garden plans.
This publication is adapted from the Vermont Rain Garden Manual for the southern Lake Michigan region. The manual was developed through Lawn to Lake, which is a collaborative program to protect water resources in the Great Lakes region by promoting healthy lawn and landscape practices.
**The Red Oak Rain Garden at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The recent contamination of drinking water in Toledo, Ohio brought the risks of algal blooms center stage and raised serious concerns for the future. Questions on everybody’s mind are what are toxic algal blooms, what causes them, and what can we do? Michael Brennan, IISG’s water quality outreach specialist, has some answers:
Regional scientists have been concerned about algal blooms like the one we saw a few weeks ago for some time. Its unique conditions make western Lake Erie particularly susceptible to algae blooms, both toxic and non-toxic. Warm temperatures, shallow, slow-moving water, and excessive nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations create optimal conditions for algae to thrive during summer months.
Let’s step back a bit. Algal blooms are essentially overgrowths of algae triggered by excess concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus carried in stormwater runoff from lawns, leaky septic systems, golf courses, and agricultural fields to nearby waterbodies. The severity of a seasonal algal bloom is directly related to annual rainfall accumulation and the number of severe rainfall events
Non-toxic blooms occur all over the Great Lakes. Occasionally, the algae associated with blooms—a cyanobacteria—releases a toxin known as microcystin. This is the toxin responsible for contaminating the drinking water of over 500,000 people in the Toledo area.
But even non-toxic algal blooms are harmful. When rapid algal growth dies off, decomposition sucks oxygen out of the water, depriving freshwater organisms of the oxygen needed to survive. Decomposition also slowly releases nitrogen and phosphorus back to the water column, setting the stage for the cycle to start again next season.
There are no quick fixes in Lake Erie or any of the other lakes. But there are things we can do. Better stormwater management through green infrastructure is key. Unlike impervious surfaces, the plants and trees used in green infrastructure can absorb water and filter out pollutants before it reaches a waterbody.
Individuals can help prevent algal blooms as well. Homeowners and gardeners can adopt natural lawn and landscaping practices that conserve water and reduce stormwater runoff. Most of these practices are simple and cost-effective, like applying nitrogen fertilizer only in fall, removing weeds by pulling and hoeing, and limiting watering to the mornings and evenings.
**Photo courtesy of Ohio Department of Natural Resources
Illinois teacher Carol Schnaiter has big plans for her classes at Amboy Central School. Carol was one of 14 teachers to participate in IISG’s B-WET workshop last year. And this summer, she spent two weeks in the Gulf of Mexico aboard the NOAA research vessel Oregon II. Carol wrote in to tell us about her experiences at both, how they have already shaped her curriculum, and what she has planned for her students this year.
“I am constantly looking for workshops, classes, and events that I can attend and bring what I learned back to my class. Each adventure adds to our classroom and allows the students to learn something new.
I was very excited when I was selected for the B-WET workshop in June of 2013. After the workshop, I added an entire unit on invasive species in the Great Lakes area for the 4th graders and another unit on restoration for the 3rd graders, plus I expanded the watershed unit I was teaching to the third graders. At the end of the units, I invited a guest speaker from the Amboy Marsh, Greg Hunter, to speak to all my classes about the Amboy Marsh and invasive species in our area. We then went to the Amboy Marsh, where the students pulled the invasive Garlic Mustard plant and cleaned away brush. The staff also arranged for guest speakers to talk about turtles, birds, and plants and gave a walking tour of the marsh. My colleagues and I are hoping to continue working with Amboy Marsh when we do our invasive species unit and our restoration unit each year.
The students loved learning about the invasive species! We used the cards from the Sea Grant curricula and played games, such as Beat the Barriers. The students also did research on the various species and used the watch cards. When Mr. Hunter came in to speak, the students had background information on invasive species and were able to connect with what he was discussing.
This summer, I took part in the NOAA Teacher at Sea Program in the Gulf of Mexico. While on the ship, I worked with NOAA scientists and the crew to learn about the Gulf ecosystems first-hand and watch real science in action. I was on the midnight-to-noon shift for 16 days. We traveled to “stations” across the Gulf where we dropped the trawling net, the bongo nets, and the CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth) sensors as part of the Groundfish Survey. Once the nets were brought up, we would count, measure, weigh, and record the sex of all the species. Our main objective was to collect information and send it to federal agencies that used it to set the shrimp season and catch limits.
As a result of this experience, I am working on adding more information to our invasive species unit and creating another unit that will have the students trace the water from the Great Lakes watershed to the Gulf of Mexico. We will be following the NOAA Ship Oregon II as they go out for the fall Groundfish Survey and adding that information to the data collected while I was aboard this summer. We will be watching the water’s oxygen levels as the ship travels across the Gulf and will try to figure out what might be the cause of any changes.
Tying both the B-WET workshop and my experience on a working research ship together will allow the students to see how everyday science is touching our lives.”
Steve Mauro’s research into the impacts of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) on bacterial communities may have started as a small side project, but it has become so much more. The Gannon University dean gained national attention in 2011 when he and his research team discovered that small concentrations of fluoxetine are killing E. coli in the nearshore waters of Lake Erie. Today, Mauro continues to investigate exactly where and how fluoxetine and other pharmaceutical chemicals, both individually and combined, are changing the microbes that keep aquatic ecosystems healthy. And it is this work that brought IISG to his office bright and early on a June morning.
In this issue of UpClose, Mauro goes beyond his work on PPCPs to talk about the importance public outreach and about new efforts that are making it easier for forecasters and beach managers to predict when E. coli levels may make a trip to the beach more trouble than its worth.
Believe it or not, Indiana is a prime location for aquaculture industries due to its rich supply of raw materials for fish food and access to large markets. And as fish continue to be harvested from oceans and other water bodies at unsustainable rates, the role of aquaculture grows ever more vital.
This work has led to economic development not just in the aquaculture industry but in a variety of other sectors as well. Research has revealed that farm sales of aquaculture products in Indiana reached about $15 million in 2013, a nearly five-fold increase over 2005. Fish farming in the state supports 280 jobs, 169 directly in the aquaculture industry. Aquaculture generates $3.7 million labor income and $19.5 million added value. The industry output is valued at $23.6 million for a total value of $38 million with other supporting industries.
To learn more about how IISG is empowering communities and individuals to strengthen local environments and economies, check out our 2013 program impacts.
It’s been a few months since IISG-sponsored graduate students Sara Paver and Katherine Touzinsky began their Knauss fellowships. We were curious to hear about their experiences so far and thought you might be too. We heard from Sara a few weeks ago. This week we check-in with Katherine, an alum of Purdue University who is spending the year with the US Army Corps of Engineers.
“This year has been overwhelming, in a good way. I never thought I would find myself working for the US Army Corps of Engineers. That being said, I also can’t imagine a better fit for my Knauss Fellowship. I went to Purdue University as a fellow in the Ecological Sciences and Engineering (ESE) interdisciplinary program because, as an ecologist, I thought it would be valuable to gain insight into the way engineers and other scientists think. In addition to the courses and thesis work I completed in the Forestry Department at Purdue, the supplementary education I received through ESE was eye opening and fascinating. I loved the practice of big-picture thinking, and this year with the Corps has solidified that love. It has prompted intellectual growth and self-realization. I’m moving on from studying human-ecological invasive species interaction to thinking about nationwide systems like marine transportation, flood risk management, and how to prepare for an uncertain future.
Living in Washington, D.C. has been an amazing experience in itself. Not only is my job exciting, but I moved out to D.C. with 50 other Knauss fellows—a built-in network of brilliant and ambitious people who have a true passion for the environment and for communicating science to those outside of academia. It has been so exciting and valuable to get to know the other fellows because I know they are people who will stay in my network the rest of my life. When else do you get to move to a new city with 50 new friends to explore it with?
In the past six months, I have spent a total of 11 weeks on the road—touring parts of our nation’s largest engineering projects that the public never sees, working on introducing new technologies to district projects, helping to facilitate workshops and conferences with environmentalists, regulatory personnel, and project directors from around the world, and learning about the staggering amount of resources and manpower involved in managing our waterway systems.
I am currently writing this post in a coffee shop outside of Portland, Oregon (yes, the coffee is great). I spent the past two days touring both the Bonneville Dam and The Dalles on the Columbia River with five engineers from the Engineering Research and Development Center. We worked with the dam operators on addressing some research and development (R&D) solutions to issues they have at their project sites—from fish ladders, to corrosion, to wear and tear from boats and barges coming in and out of the navigation locks. R&D can address all of these problems, and big-picture thinking while planning R&D projects is the key to a sustainable future. The Portland District projects were breathtaking—two of the largest power generating dams in the country.
August and September will bring trips to district projects in California and Hawaii and conferences in the Netherlands and Greece. I’m looking forward to what the next six months will bring. I truly can’t imagine a more exciting year.”
**Photo: Katherine standing near The Dalles navigation lock with Oregon’s Mt. Hood in the background.
Earlier this week, a new environmental monitoring buoy joined a chain of similar buoys that are increasing boating and swimming safety and helping anglers target specific species of fish from Ludington, MI to Michigan City, IN.
From Michigan Live:
Deployed roughly two miles off the shores of South Haven on Wednesday, the buoy can distribute improved wind and wave observations in addition to measuring wind speed, wind direction, air temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, water temperature and wave height among other variables.
“Given South Haven’s strong connection to Lake Michigan I am excited for the addition of this station to the regional buoy network,” South Haven Mayor Robert Burr said in a statement. “The city’s goal is to provide area boaters, swimmers, and water safety professionals with up-to-date lake conditions. Conditions on the big lake can change fast and we want everyone to be prepared when venturing out on the water.
Visit our buoy website to learn more about how real-time data is helping weather forecasters and researchers better understand the nearshore waters of Lake Michigan.
**Photo: Boaters and swimmers enjoy the water at South Haven Beach
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