September, of course, means back to school. For many, this concept is only a memory. Others are living it firsthand, while parents experience this time through their children. But, it is clear, for most, this school year has started off differently than any we have known in the past.
As Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant continues to adjust programming for our socially distanced world, we are striving to be a resource for others. In time for this fall’s semester, we have created a weather and climate education toolkit where teachers and parents can find resources on the topics of weather, climate and climate change. This collection of activities can help empower educators, both locally and nationally, to be able to teach complex topics in a virtual setting.
Beyond the classroom, IISG is helping some local businesses navigate the pandemic and prepare for a more resilient future. We are engaging with Lake Michigan charter fishing captains in Illinois and Indiana to understand how COVID-19 has affected them and to provide information on government programs that can help stabilize their businesses. IISG is also leading a pilot-study project to help aquaculture producers receive critical training so they can process their fish in commercial kitchens during times when normal distribution channels are interrupted.
In other pressing subjects, this fall, IISG will host a series of virtual workshops to improve understanding of Lake Michigan’s changing water levels. In 2020, the lake repeatedly broke monthly high-water level records. With a focus on the southern Lake Michigan region, we are bringing together scientists and other experts who are engaged in lake-level changes and their effects. We envision that information generated through these workshops will inform the development of products, tools, and datasets that help communicate the risks associated with future water level changes, whether lake levels be high or low.
Finally, I’d like to share that IISG has brought back The Helm, the program’s long-running news publication. Now an annual magazine, The Helm is a collection of program research, outreach and education success stories and ongoing activities to address coastal concerns. This issue is focused on addressing urban flooding, the seafood trade deficit, critical natural resources, and more.
“I was 19 years old. I never even knew any of this stuff existed. I didn’t know I could be a scientist. I thought that was something way beyond what I could be,” said Susan Daniel, a Buffalo State College researcher who studies invertebrates that live at the bottom of the Great Lakes.
She was talking to students from Ellis Middle School in Elgin, Illinois, who had posed questions for her and a handful of other scientists taking part in a virtual session bringing these two groups together. These students in Holly Yee’s science classes had been studying the Great Lakes and the participating scientists are experts on the subject. They hail from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), universities and the Sea Grant program.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) developed the Scientists Ask Students (SAS) program to connect students with Great Lakes scientists on board the EPA research ship, the Lake Guardian, via videocasts. While out on the lakes collecting samples, scientists visit classrooms virtually and talk with students about aquatic science, water quality monitoring, careers, and life on a ship. Since the program’s inception, over 25 scientists, 33 teachers, and more than 3400 students throughout the Great Lakes have participated.
This spring, due to COVID-19, as with most events, SAS videocasts needed to be rethought, if the program happened at all. Working with several teachers, IISG’s Kristin TePas and Allison Neubauer refashioned the get-togethers with everyone in their homes, both scientists and students alike.
“This has resulted in a fair amount of trial and error to find processes and platforms that work well,” said Neubauer, IISG Great Lakes outreach associate. “As it turns out, I think this has been beneficial in encouraging participation from different types of learners, ranging from those who feel comfortable unmuting themselves and directly asking the scientists questions to those who would prefer to type in a chat box.”
The interactions with scientists and the Elgin students included prerecorded videos created when convenient—introductory videos from scientists describing their work, students posing questions, and scientists’ recorded answers. Many of the questions focused on Great Lakes conditions and issues, but some were more personal in nature, such as what is your favorite thing about being a scientist?
“Quite a few of my students expressed how much they learned by having these virtual conversations with the scientists and that it sparked their interest to want to explore the Great Lakes with their families,” said Yee.
In Mishawaka, Indiana, John Gensic’s high schoolers were learning about genetically modified organisms (GMO) and biotechnology, including farm-raised GMO salmon, so TePas and Neubauer recruited Sea Grant specialists in Great Lakes fisheries and aquaculture to answer their questions.
They organized two live sessions to give students more opportunity to take part. And while these sessions included real-time interactions, they also allowed for submitting questions after the fact.
“This opportunity actually was better via remote learning because many classes of students could participate at once, and they weren’t missing another class to join this call,” said Gensic. “It helped students see potential careers and helped students meet people who actually worked in the places we had previously read about. The experience also helped me grow in my understanding as a teacher to make more relevant lessons in the future.”
The third session was with Benita Cataldo’s high school biology students in Waterton, New York, and this time the students posed questions in the chat space in real time.
Many of the educators that bring these videochat sessions to their students have also taken part in other Sea Grant opportunities to enhance aquatic science and Great Lakes education in their classrooms. In fact, they likely spent some time on the Lake Guardian themselves.
Every summer, the Center for Great Lakes Literacy, a consortium of seven Sea Grant programs, conducts a weeklong Shipboard Science workshop where about 15 educators work side-by-side with scientists on the EPA ship. Teachers explore aquatic sciences and learn about resources that help them bring Great Lakes and ocean literacy activities to their classrooms and they build networks with educators and scientists. Sadly, the 2020 Lake Michigan workshop was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Most of the focus of SAS and the Shipboard Science Workshop has been on the opportunities they bring to educators and, of course, their students. Educators have described organizing field trips, incorporating new curricula, and bringing real-world Great Lakes issues to the classroom. Students’ eyes may also be opened to new career possibilities.
But the benefits can go both ways. Scientists can be inspired as well.
“When these students come and ask good questions and really remind you what you’re doing is important, it lights that fire in your belly for a couple more months—to really have that drive to do research, and do it well,” said Daniel.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant announces the return of its long-running news publication, The Helm, which has been on hiatus. Now an annual magazine, The Helm is a collection of program research, outreach and education success stories and ongoing activities to address coastal concerns. This first issue is focused on addressing urban flooding, the seafood trade deficit, critical natural resources, and more.
Here are some headlines from this issue:
Building better rain gardens to reduce runoff
Regional and local efforts focus on growing aquaculture
Science and scientists become real for students and teachers
Communities set natural resource priorities and create action plans
Buoys provide key data to predict dangerous currents
When Kathy Sipple was homebound as many of us were this spring, she decided to use her training from the Indiana Master Watershed Steward program to transform her property.
“I designed the dry creek bed in my backyard. I put in a rain garden. I removed all the turf grass from my front yard and replaced it with native plants,” she explained. “I really internalized that the training was about more than getting a certificate. I want my own land to reflect the best water practices that I could possibly do as a watershed steward.”
The Indiana Master Watershed Steward program, which trains residents in the basics of maintaining and enhancing water resources, kicked off its first course in 2019. After completing 12 weeks of classes, participants become certified by then completing 35 hours of volunteer service.
“We developed this program because changes in local watersheds have led to a need for water sampling and other activities to better understand the conditions of our waterways and also to connect volunteers with organizations who engage in on-the-ground work,” said Leslie Dorworth, aquatic ecology specialist for Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and Purdue University Northwest. The IMWS program is a collaboration of more than 15 federal, university, regional, and local partners.
In its inaugural year, 14 people completed the training and 11 of those became full-fledged stewards. As part of their volunteering, stewards earned their certification by removing invasive species, monitoring stream water quality, cleaning up beaches, rehabilitating wildlife, planting rain gardens and more.
Sipple, who had a long history of volunteering for environmental activities in northwest Indiana, quickly achieved her certification by helping with invasive species removal projects and organizing a climate change meeting.
Another graduate of the stewardship program, David Klein began his involvement in volunteerism helping with labor issues. As he came to appreciate the natural beauty of the Calumet region, his volunteering activities followed suit, including putting in long days helping to clear debris from the East Branch of the Little Calumet Water Trail. He took the course, in part, due to his interest in hydrology.
(Images courtesy of David Klein.)
This spring, Klein organized seven socially-distant beach cleanup events along the Indiana shore, at which 26 participants collected more than 300 pounds of trash.
“Beach cleanups can bring together people from diverse backgrounds and belief structures to work toward a common goal that benefits the community and is personally worthwhile and gratifying,” said Klein. These events have now been suspended because many Indiana beaches are closed this summer due to the pandemic.
According to IMWS graduate Susan Swarner, the biggest benefit of volunteering after the training is that she has a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding watershed management than before. “This means that I can give more detailed programs and refine them for different interests, community groups, and age groups,” she added.
With this year’s classes canceled due to the pandemic, plans are in the works to retool the 2021 course to be in a virtual format. “This offers us the opportunity to incorporate panel discussions and podcasts, but also the chance for potential participants from throughout the state to take part,” said Dorworth.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
Midway through, it is an understatement to say that 2020 has proven to be a year to remember. COVID-19 has taken its toll in any number of ways, affecting all of us in big and small areas of our lives. And, recent events and demonstrations have shone a needed light on issues of injustice and systemic racism.
The protests and the greater consciousness they have contributed to should challenge all of us, including Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG), to learn and do more to address inequalities. As evidenced by our Values Statement, we strive to make opportunities broadly accessible and to serve a diversity of stakeholders. To this point, we have been actively seeking ways by which IISG can be more diverse, inclusive and equitable through the research we fund, through the training and committees we facilitate and through the outreach, education and communication programs we conduct. But, undoubtedly there is more we can do to be proactive in this regard.
We are having discussions within our program as well as within the academic units where IISG is housed to consider how we can take additional concrete steps to initiate and support programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. We would also appreciate input from those of you outside of our program. If you have ideas for how IISG can initiate actions to facilitate diversity, equity and inclusion, please feel free to reach out to me or any member of the IISG staff. We welcome your thoughts.
Due to COVID-19, we, like everyone, have had to cancel or postpone numerous events and projects. Of particular disappointment was the Shipboard Science Workshop on Lake Michigan, a weeklong opportunity for educators to work side-by-side with scientists onboard EPA’s R/V Lake Guardian. Deployment of the four buoys we manage or co-manage in southern Lake Michigan waters was delayed, but we’re happy to report that the Michigan City buoy is on duty at this time—providing a key resource for weather and wave predictions.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant dedicates a great deal of its resources to engage in outreach—bringing information and support to communities, residents and other stakeholders on coastal concerns—so we have explored new tools and planned new approaches to reach our audiences. In addition, we have been jumping in where we think we can help in navigating the new challenges and questions that have come up during the pandemic.
For example, with our focus on natural resources, we dedicated three episodes of our podcast, Teach Me about the Great Lakes, to the importance of and potential risks of spending time outdoors and in nature during the “stay at home” phase of this crisis. We have also been part of a National Sea Grant Office effort to share network-wide educational resources for parents and teachers who may have been and continue to be struggling to keep children engaged in learning. And, we are exploring ways to help through providing rapid response information.
In other news, we are pleased to welcome three new members to the second round of the IISG Faculty Scholars Program. The long-term goal of this program is to help build and support a community of researchers working on critical issues related to Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes region. These new faculty scholars represent Indiana University, Illinois State University, and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Their projects will cover climate readiness, repurposing dredged material, and wetland restoration. We look forward to providing guidance and support as they learn about coastal issues and develop new projects to address them.
During these challenging and important times, here’s hoping you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.
In Episode 13 of Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s podcast series Teach Me About the Great Lakes, titled “It Smells Like Science,” host Stuart Carlton interviews Brian Roth, an ecologist in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University. Roth studies food web structure and function to try to understand how fish management and harvest actions affects the food web and vice versa.
Brian Roth
Carlton, IISG assistant director, and Roth talk about predatory fish in the Great Lakes, the history of the Great Lakes salmon fishery, how native and invasive fishes interact within the ecosystem, and how the fish populations are changing as lake conditions change, as well. They also briefly discuss invasive crayfish and the nitty gritty detail of conducting a fish diet study.
Teach Me About the Great Lakes is a monthly podcast in which Carlton—a social scientist who grew up in the South near the Gulf of Mexico—asks people to explain the biology, ecology and natural history of the Great Lakes. A new episode is usually released on the first Monday of each month. The latest episode is embedded below.
Love this episode and want to hear more in the future? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or use the RSS feed in your favorite podcast player.
If you have questions you want answered about the Great Lakes, reach out to @TeachGreatLakes on Twitter or email Stuart Carlton at jsc@purdue.edu.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) announces the second group of researchers selected for the Sea Grant Faculty Scholars program. Established in 2019, the program seeks to help develop a community of scientists to work on critical issues related to Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes region.
“Through this program, we encourage researchers working in Illinois or Indiana to learn about issues facing our stakeholders,” said Tomas Höök, IISG director. “We provide funding and opportunity for one year. During this time, faculty scholars work with our stakeholders or program specialists to develop preliminary research products, but scholars must then develop and submit a larger proposal to another funding source to continue to address these issues.”
The inaugural faculty scholars cohort is wrapping up their projects. Karolina Kwasek of Southern Illinois University Carbondale is compiling knowledge from a variety of sources, including peer-reviewed literature and local fish farmers, to develop a protocol for raising young largemouth bass using indoor systems. (Kwasek was also funded for a related project.) Sundeep Inti of Purdue University Northwest is exploring the use of permeable concrete, which can allow water to pass through, as a way to address increased runoff due to larger storms and more urbanization. Finally, Max Melstrom from Loyola University Chicago examined recreational fishing license fees, including whether the amounts are fair and are optimal to encourage participation and meet budget needs. Melstrom is also working with the Great Lakes Aquaculture Collaborative, an effort to increase aquaculture production and sales in the region, assessing consumer values and willingness to pay for a variety of aquaculture products.
“The faculty scholar program provided the financial support and networking that has allowed me to do these projects,” said Melstrom. “I can say, without any hesitation, that being a part of this program has helped move my research program forward.”
The second group of faculty scholars began their projects on June 1, 2020. The new participants include William Bianco, a professor of political science at Indiana University, who will survey Indiana coastal communities to assess what steps they have taken in terms of climate readiness. Sophie Taddeo, a new researcher at the Chicago Botanic Garden and plant biology and conservation faculty member at Northwestern University, will use years of satellite data to help inform the restoration and management of Great Lakes coastal wetlands. And Pranshoo Solanki, an associate professor of civil engineering at Illinois State University, will take the first steps toward assessing the use of dredged material collected near Calumet Harbor as a substitute for sand in new construction material.
Höök looks forward to the future of the faculty scholars program. “We are excited to have a second cohort of faculty scholars. Our goal over time is to ensure the program grows and supports both the scholars and our stakeholder groups.”
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
Over the past few decades, invasive species like zebra and quagga mussels have been eating up much of the base of Lake Michigan’s food web, affecting organisms throughout the lake, including alewife, a staple meal for salmon and trout. As menu options shift for these top predators, their success going forward may depend on expanding their diets.
A lake-wide study of salmon and trout conducted in 2015–16 found that diet flexibility varies among salmon and trout species, but Chinook salmon, the favorite of many anglers, are basically eating only alewife.
“This study describes how salmon and trout feeding patterns respond to the ever-changing Lake Michigan food web,” said Tomas Höök, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant director. “Of particular concern, as alewife have been declining in abundance, the seeming inflexibility and continued reliance on alewife by Chinook salmon may not bode well for this highly prized species.”
Scientists from around the region got to the bottom of what five salmon and trout species in Lake Michigan eat in a direct way—they analyzed stomach contents. To do this on a lake-wide scale, they relied on help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and state Departments of Natural Resources around the lake. Agency creel survey clerks interviewed anglers and gathered data as well as fish stomachs. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians also contributed from what they caught in their nets.
“It was a huge effort to accomplish something like this, so we needed help from just about everybody around the lake,” said Ben Leonhardt, who worked on this project as part of his Purdue University master’s degree and is now with the USFWS. “The anglers were the most important contributor—they took time out of their days to provide us with what we needed.”
The research team found that all five salmon and trout species ate alewife. But, unlike Chinook salmon, which almost exclusively consumed alewife, coho salmon also ate aquatic invertebrates. Lake trout and brown trout were less reliant on alewife, adding round goby to their diets, while rainbow trout also ate insects.
The story can get more complicated when factoring in location and season. “In the spring and only in the southeast portion of the lake, coho salmon were full of mysis,” said Leonhardt. “Anglers have noticed this at that time of the year, but it’s never been documented before.” Mysis, also known as opossum shrimp, is a tiny crustacean.
Also in the spring, along the Michigan side of the lake, brown trout and lake trout ate more round goby than alewife, but on the westside it was the opposite—brown and lake trout ate more alewife than round goby. One likely explanation for that difference is terrain. The gobies are able to hide on the rocky westside, but the sandy eastside offers no cover.
While alewife and round goby, both non-native species, were the prey fish of choice for salmon and trout, other fish like bloater or sculpin were also available and sometimes in greater abundance. Nonetheless, researchers rarely found these native species in the predators’ diets.
Alewife is a type of herring. (NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory)
One explanation for the salmon’s preference for alewife could be their silvery appearance. “Salmon are really interested in shiny objects—they’re really distracted by them,” said Austin Happel, a research biologist with Shedd Aquarium who has continued to be involved in this project since his tenure as a University of Illinois doctoral student.
Most of Lake Michigan’s salmon and trout species are non-native too, and they all have been stocked into the lake going back many decades. Understanding what these fish are eating and keeping predators and prey in balance is critical to maintaining a healthy fishery.
“Previous to this study, for coho salmon, brown trout and rainbow trout, resource managers have used diet compositions from the 1980s,” said Happel. “Now we know those species are not only eating alewife anymore. They’re also eating quite a bit of terrestrial insects and round goby. This can be included into stocking models to get a more complete prediction of how many fish—salmon and trout of different species—that the lake can handle.”
This project was the first part of a larger diet study assessing salmon and trout diets using three methods that assess diets at different timescales. This piece of the study, analyzing stomach contents, indicates what fish ate the day they were caught or maybe the day before. Second is to look at fatty acids in the fish, which show a longer time frame—what the fish ate over several weeks. The final piece is analyzing stable isotope ratios in fish tissues, revealing several months of a fish’s diet.
“Understanding changes in the Great Lakes ecosystem through solid scientific studies, such as the work by this team, is pivotal to inform fishery managers in their decision making,” said Tammy Newcomb, Michigan Department of Natural Resources senior water policy advisor and co-chair of the Great Lakes Fishery Trust Science Advisory Team.
The research was funded by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, the Great Lakes Fishery Trust and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. “Diet complexity of Lake Michigan Salmonines: 2015–2016” is available in the Journal of Great Lakes Research online now, and in the August print edition.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
For the aquaculture industry in the Midwest to grow to meet the region’s seafood demand, some production hurdles need to be removed—one is the difficulty of feeding some newly- and recently-hatched larval fish indoors. An innovative approach, developed through Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant-funded research, shows promise for robust and healthy larvae as well as a potential new market for invasive Asian carp.
In aquaculture production, growing young larvae into fingerlings (or juvenile fish) mostly takes place in outdoor ponds. With many fish—including largemouth bass—when their eggs hatch, the tiny larvae have limited vision and mobility and primitive digestive systems. Young larval fish depend on live food, due, in part, to its nutrient availability and because they can see it moving when it swims by. But, with the food supply being unpredictable, temperatures fluctuating, and predators looming, survival rates suffer.
On the other hand, indoor production offers some control over the environment, but providing live food indoors is costly and labor intensive.
“The option then, is to replace live food, which is palatable, very colorful and contrasts against the color of the tank, with a dry pellet that immediately sinks—the larval fish oftentimes do not even get a chance to ingest it,” said Karolina Kwasek, a fish physiologist at Southern Illinois University. “Also, because we know little about larval nutrition, the dry food has been designed for more mature fish. It is composed of very complex nutrients that fish in these young stages are unable to properly digest yet need for proper growth and development.”
To test her new feeding approach, Kwasek turned to bighead carp, one of the invasive Asian carp species that has come to dominate the waters of the Illinois River and pose a potential threat to the Great Lakes. Bighead carp have been previously tested as a fishmeal source for largemouth bass.
“We wanted to see if we could use the same fish muscle source to obtain a high-quality ingredient to feed the very young of largemouth bass,” said Kwasek.
Here’s where the process is innovative—in the lab, the team used the digestive system of adult largemouth bass to break down the bighead carp muscle into simpler nutritional components so they would be readily available for larval fish. “The protein was completely digested to very small peptides or short chains of amino acids that were much more absorbable,” said Kwasek.
They tested the new food source, incorporating it into the diet of a larval largemouth bass sample, while another group had intact bighead carp muscle mixed into its diet.
The larval largemouth bass fed pre-digested bighead carp protein were larger in weight and length than those fed intact bighead carp muscle. “We think we achieved so much better growth performance because of much higher availability of these nutrients in these larval stages.”
Kwasek’s team also discovered some unexpected good news. They found that the occurrence of skeletal deformities was 17% lower in the group fed pre-digested food, which was at 6%, compared to the intact protein group at 23%. “We didn’t plan to look at deformities but as we started looking at these fish, it was obvious that the control group had so many more,” said Kwasek.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is a part of University of Illinois Extension and Purdue Extension.
The Center for Great Lakes Literacy has launched a beautifully redesigned website. The star of the show is the Resource Library!
Whether you`re teaching in a classroom, leading a community program, or just passionate about the Great Lakes, the new hub makes it easier than ever to find lesson plans, activities, videos, and stewardship ideas tailored to your needs.
This summer, 15 Great Lakes educators swapped lesson plans for life jackets as they boarded the Lake Guardian, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s research vessel, and set sail on Lake Michigan. Through the Shipboard Science Immersion program, 5–12 grade formal and non-formal educators worked side by side with Great Lakes scientists for a week—an experience they say will ripple back to their classrooms for years to come.
Looking for engaging, place-based literacy resources this school year? The Great Lakes: Our Freshwater Treasure by Barb Rosenstock is a beautifully illustrated dive into the geology, ecology, and history of our Great Lakes—perfect for sparking curiosity in learners of all ages.
Last month, Illinois and Indiana educators gathered for a two-day, professional learning workshop hosted by @duneslearning, @indianadnr, @thengrrec, and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant to dive deep into water’s role in Earth’s systems
Using @projectwet’s newest guidebook, Water in Earth Systems, participants explored the unique ecosystems of @indianadunesnps and engaged in hands-on aquatic science activities—bringing Great Lakes learning to life in the classroom!
Thanks to all who joined us in connecting science, stewardship, and the Great Lakes!
