Even though Asian carp is considered a nuisance by many in the Great Lakes and Mississippi regions, these fish have been a popular food in China for thousands of years. Because of this fact, experts who took part in Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s Asian Carp Marketing Summit (ACMS) have proposed that the invasive species be exported in high numbers back home to Asian markets.

The ACMS was held so various stakeholder groups could discuss opportunities and impediments to commercial marketing of Asian carp as a way to slow the spread of these fish. In addition to exporting, participating experts agreed that another solution could be marketing high-value Asian carp fillets to restaurants and retailers. They also recommended converting Asian carp by-products into pet food or treats to eliminate waste and maximize profit opportunities.

For all this to happen, incentives are needed for anglers, restaurants, and retailers to harvest the fish. For example, increasing the price per pound and lifting fishing restrictions were proposed as possible solutions to entice fishermen. Also, participants said it may be necessary to re-brand the fish to overcome the public’s negative perception.

Attending the meeting were commercial fishers, processors, natural resource managers, marketers, researchers, conservation organizations, aquaculturists, distributors, and restaurateurs from eight different states.

The two-day summit was held from Sept. 20-21 and was sponsored by IISG, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center. 

Many college classes are lecture-based and require students to be subjected to an endless amount of PowerPoint slides. However, students here at the University of Illinois have an opportunity to take a class in which they can put away their lecture notes and bust out their thinking caps with ENG 315: Learning in Community (LINC).

“I think students are eager to find authentic, challenging experiences that help them develop skills that are transferable to the job market,” said LINC Co-Director Valeri Werpetinski, of the Center for Teaching Excellence. “Many also want to be more actively involved in the community, and service-learning courses enable them to integrate this goal into their busy academic lives.”

This course partners nonprofit organizations with students, who will address the needs of these entities. One of these nonprofits is Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG), which is involved in projects geared toward the conservation and practical use of the coasts, especially southern Lake Michigan.

The course allows for students to exercise a great deal of creativity and freedom. Werpetinski said students will spend time in small teams planning and implementing projects that align with the mission and environmental education needs of IISG. They will also teach and collaborate with youth on community stewardship projects.

“Students in this class are given a great deal of responsibility and are provided with leadership and critical-thinking experience,” said Robin Goettel, IISG associate director for education. “A key issue we will be looking at is how to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species. Students will explore ways to work with community organizations to get that message out to the public.”

For example, college students in 2010 worked with an 8th grade class in making a group of projects that raised awareness about different invasive species. Some children created comic strips and poems that were published in the News Gazette, while others made the song “All the Zebra Mussels” to the tune of Beyonce’s pop song “Single Ladies.”

The LINC program promotes a life-long commitment to learning and service for U of I students by serving as a resource and connecting members of the university community with local non-profit organizations to engage in meaningful service experiences.

Fresh and Salt is a collection of activities that enhance teacher capabilities to connect Great Lakes and ocean science topics. Designed to be used by teachers in grades 5-10, Fresh and Salt provides an interdisciplinary approach to ensure that students achieve optimum science understanding of both Great Lakes and Ocean Literacy Principles. This curriculum offers a varied range of instructional modes, including data interpretation, experimentation, simulation, interactive mapping, and investigation.

The 14 activities that make up Fresh and Salt were selected for their capacity to provide science process skills that students need for effective learning. This curriculum can also help prepare students to be responsible decision-makers that promote a sustainable society.

This project was led by IISG with funding and support from COSEE Great Lakes. Visit the IISG website to download or order a copy of Fresh and Salt.

Paris Collingsworth has joined IISG as the new Great Lakes ecosystem specialist. He is working with the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office to improve access to and sharing of Great Lakes data and research, develop indicators, and develop products and programs to sustain or improve ecosystem health.

Paris has a background in statistical and computer modeling and comes to IISG from a post doc position at the USGS Great Lakes Science Center where he was involved in building models describing how primary productivity patterns and climatic variables influence fish recruitment across the Great Lakes. He has a PhD in evolution, ecology and organismal biology from Ohio State and an MS in zoology from Southern Illinois University.

From Chicago Tribune:

In a city built on a swamp, where rainstorms already flood basements and force sewage into Lake Michigan and local streams, climate change could make Chicago’s chronic water pollution woes even worse.

Researchers hired by Mayor Richard Daley’s office estimate that intense rainfall will happen more frequently in the not-so-distant future because of warming global temperatures, challenging the region’s aging sewers and the troubled Deep Tunnel project more than ever.

Rains of greater than 2.5 inches a day, the amount that can trigger sewage dumping into Lake Michigan, are expected to increase by 50 percent between now and 2039, according to a study by scientists from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Texas Tech University. By the end of the century, the number of big storms could jump by a whopping 160 percent. Read more.  

From Lake Michigan Shore:

With the greatest freshwater source on the planet in our backyard, it’s easy to think it is an infinite source. But a new report and campaign are warning water shortages are possible throughout the Great Lakes if consumers and municipalities don’t change their ways.

A five-year study by the U.S. Geological Survey in Lansing, Michigan, released earlier this year indicated groundwater levels have dropped by 1,000 feet in the Chicago and Milwaukee metropolitan regions due to increased demand from municipal pumping stations. Those levels could drop another 100 feet by 2040 if demand continues to increase as forecast. Read more.

From Science Daily: 

Tiny crustaceans called copepods rule the world, at least when it comes to oceans and estuaries. The most numerous multi-cellular organisms in the seas, copepods are an important link between phytoplankton and fish in marine food webs.

To understand and predict how copepods respond to environmental change, scientists need to know not only how many new copepods are born, but how many are dying, say biological oceanographers David Elliott of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), and Kam Tang of VIMS.

Elliott and Tang realized there was only one way to discover the answer: find the copepods’ carcasses. Read more.

From the Bloomington Pantagraph:

A proposal pending in the state legislature may make it easier for police departments to pay for a prescription drug disposal program that began in Pontiac.

The Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal program, or P2D2, was launched about four years ago by students at Pontiac Township High School and their teacher, Paul Ritter. The program has spread to other communities and states.

Students were concerned that prescription drugs disposed of improperly, usually down household drains, were polluting groundwater.

High school students in Antioch heard about the program and brought the idea to state Rep. JoAnn Osmond, who is sponsoring a measure that will allow for the safe disposal of prescription drugs at local police departments. Read more.

IISG has worked closely with P2D2 to support medicine take back programs and develop curriculum collections–for example, the Medicine Chest–for high school teachers and students. Many of the activities in this collection help students learn how to raise awareness and take action in their communities. IISG does not engage in advocacy, rather we provide scientific knowledge on a number of water-related issues to a variety of audiences. The students who took part in the legislative hearing to fund medicine collection programs are learning how to affect change in their community by sharing their knowledge with decision makers. Here is a video of their experience.

From Madison.com:

Residents in 36 Wisconsin counties will be able to dispose of unwanted drugs and help keep the Great Lakes cleaner just by using the postal system.

“Get the Meds Out,” a program developed by the University of Wisconsin Extension, will allow residents in counties whose watersheds empty into either Lake Michigan or Lake Superior to send unwanted prescription medications to a facility in Maine for safe disposal.

The benefits are two-fold: Residents get the prescription drugs out of the house and the drugs stay out of the state’s water supply. Read more.