The 5-year COSEE Great Lakes Project has led to significant knowledge gain, as well as a deeper understanding of the connection between the Great Lakes and the people in the region, including how they impact each other, according to the project’s evaluation results. COSEE Great Lakes curriculum has also enhanced teacher capabilities for accessing science information and integrating Great Lakes research into the school curriculum.

COSEE Great Lakes collaborators gathered at Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio September 24-25 to celebrate the project’s successes. COSEE (Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence) Great Lakes is a National Science Foundation- and NOAA Sea Grant-funded project that paired classroom teachers and informal educators with university and agency researchers to inspire citizens to become more scientifically literate and environmentally responsible through standards-based science curricula and programs bridging ocean and freshwater sciences. This project has brought the science of the Great Lakes to “salty” coasts, while immersing students in the Great Lakes with new ocean literacy concepts and understandings.

COSEE Great Lakes has sponsored over 60 workshops, conferences, online learning opportunities, and other events throughout all five Great Lakes, including experiences on the U.S. EPA research vessel, the R/V Lake Guardian, as well as shoreline excursions led by scientists, natural resource managers, and representatives from Native American communities. The science-based experiences provided participants with knowledge about pressing issues in the region and opportunities to gain hands-on training in data collection and analysis.

At the summit, scientists expressed appreciation for opportunities to enhance their capability to engage in educational outreach to achieve broader impact. “I realize now and appreciate that the methodology of how to apply science concepts is more important than simply just supplying the content to educators,” said Nadine Folino-Rorem, COSEE Great Lakes scientist and summit panel member, Wheaton College.

“At the summit, there was a real commitment by the 53 educators, scientists, and COSEE Great Lakes staff to further our work together to foster Great Lakes literacy,” said Rosanne Fortner, COSEE Great Lakes director. As the grant ends, the COSEE Great Lakes team will explore new funding opportunities. COSEE Great Lakes staff members, who represent Sea Grant programs from around the basin will continue to foster collaborations through professional development opportunities for educators; scientist-educator partnerships (professional education and science conferences, science labs, research vessels, and schools); and student programming.

In the photo above, the educator and scientist participants at the summit each received a certificate of appreciation.

Mike Allen is a 2010 IISG Knauss fellow who is situated in the Office of Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes in the NOAA Research Office. He is the primary liaison between NOAA’s administrative headquarters and the three “wet labs” – the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab (PMEL), the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab (AOML), and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. Here is his latest dispatch from the field:

In the seven months of my fellowship, I’ve been exposed to a variety of opportunities and assignments in the world of NOAA. Early in my fellowship, I spent my time learning about the agency and planning for major headquarters events at the laboratories. For example, I visited the Earth Systems Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder, Colorado (twice!) and the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, Florida. In mid-March, the ESRL team hosted a science review, presenting talks and posters highlighting their work on climate and weather observations, modeling, education, and technology. For example, ESRL is an incubator for many weather and climate technologies of the present that we take for granted and for those of the future (weather observations and models used by the national weather service, climate models used for the IPCC reports). Additionally, the lab has developed innovative educational tools, including Science on a Sphere® and Virtual Worlds, which bring science to millions of people across the world. If you get a chance to visit one of the 47 sites (and growing) around the world, I highly recommend it.

Similarly, I organized a visit to Miami in April to develop better ties between headquarters staff and laboratory staff and researchers. We spent a day listening to and engaging AOML scientists on their ongoing work: hurricane observations and forecasts, physical oceanography, and ecosystem scale studies in South Florida and on coral reefs. On our second day, we spent time talking about pressing issues facing the laboratory and all of NOAA.

Currently, I am organizing trips to the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Life took a left turn in April when the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform “erupted” in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA headquarters kicked into high gear organizing response activities, and I was brought onboard to help organize the NOAA Research Office’s collection of activities. For the better part of the last four months, I have worked with leadership to track our activities, and with our laboratories to develop and submit science proposals and to secure reimbursement and new funding for completed, ongoing and proposed activities. The crisis has given me a new perspective on the role and magnitude of governmental action in the face of a crisis, and exposed me to a variety of new and unexpected endeavors (e.g., finance and budget). As the crisis mode winds down, I find myself reflecting on how much has happened and what progress has been made to understand the influence of oil on the Gulf ecosystem. We will surely be evaluating the impacts of this tragedy for years to come.

So with less than half of my fellowship left to go, the time quickly approaches to start considering future prospects. Throughout the fellowship program, we have been offered opportunities to learn about different organizations, expand our knowledge of the Federal sector, and increase our skill set through trainings and seminars. In fact, we have a jobs seminar coming up at the end of September. While I am unsure where I may be in six months, I am confident that this fellowship has placed me in a much better position for the future. I am certainly more aware of the opportunities available to scientists outside academia. I strongly encourage others to consider applying for the Knauss Fellowship. Spend a year in DC… you won’t regret it!

From the Great Lakes Echo:

Any lake trout pulled from the wild blue waters of Lake Michigan now was probably born in a government building.

That’s despite a 45-year-old, multi-million-dollar program aimed at restoring a self-sustaining, naturally reproducing population of what was formerly the Great Lakes’ top predator.

Lake trout were wiped out in most of the Great Lakes by the mid-1900s as a result of overfishing, invasive species and habitat destruction. Managers started stocking them in Lake Michigan in 1965.

After little success, a 1985 revamp of the plan focused stocking on two relatively shallow, rocky sections of Lake Michigan where fishing for the species was banned.

At least part of that overhaul has proven fruitless, according to a study published recently in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management. Read more.

From the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel:

In the wake of a government news release that pointed a finger at humans for planting an Asian carp near Lake Michigan, facts are coming to light that indicate Illinois officials may have stretched their own science to sell a whopper of a fish tale.

When netting crews hunting for Asian carp above an electric barrier on the Chicago canal system in June pulled a three-foot long, 20-pound mature bighead carp from Lake Calumet – just six miles south of Lake Michigan – the question was: How did it get there?

If it swam on its own, that would spell trouble for Lake Michigan because it could indicate that the electric fish barrier about 35 miles downstream from the lake was not doing its job, and more fish had perhaps breached this last line of defense.

If it were determined that the fish got there with human help, then it could more easily be explained as an isolated find, and not evidence that additional steps should be taken on the canal system to protect the Great Lakes. Read more.

From the New York Times:

The Great Lakes are feeling the heat from climate change.

As the world’s largest freshwater system warms, it is poised to systematically alter life for local wildlife and the tribes that depend on it, according to regional experts. And the warming could also provide a glimpse of what is happening on a more global level, they say.

“The Great Lakes in a lot of ways have always been a canary in the coal mine,” Cameron Davis, the senior adviser to the U.S. EPA on the Great Lakes, said last week. “Not just for the region or this country, but for the rest of the world.”

And it seems the canary’s song is growing ever more halting.

Lake Superior, which is the largest, deepest and coldest of the five lakes, is serving as the “canary for the canary,” Davis said at a public meeting of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force last week, pointing to recent data trends.

Total ice cover on the lake has shrunk by about 20 percent over the past 37 years, he said. Though the change has made for longer, warmer summers, it’s a problem because ice is crucial for keeping water from evaporating and it regulates the natural cycles of the Great Lakes. Read more.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Great Lakes governors and mayors – including Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley – are banding together to explore big changes for the Chicago River to protect the world’s largest freshwater system.

Just three days after five Great Lakes attorneys general filed a lawsuit to force Chicago to plug the canal system to protect Lake Michigan from the advancing Asian carp, a coalition of regional leaders announced plans Thursday to embark on a $2 million study to determine just what it will take to get that job done.

The idea of damming the canals is considered anathema to the Chicago business community because of the impact it could have on the barge industry and the way wastewater flows in the Chicago area. But political leaders across the region are taking the idea seriously. Read more.

From Circle of Blue:

Last week the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the nation’s largest municipal water suppliers, announced that along with requiring its customers to use less water under mandatory conservation measures it also would hike up the price for water by 15 percent over the next two years.

The board of the Los Angeles-based water district, which supplies drinking water to nearly 19 million people in parts of Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, anticipates a public push back.

Indeed as water sales have declined because of the recession and conservation, water utility boards all across the country have raised rates, prompting civic dismay. A growing number of raucous council meetings, street protests and petition drives in opposition to higher water prices have occurred in cities large and small–Detroit; San Diego; Joplin, Mo.; Prairie Township, Ohio.

In effect, in too many American cities to count, water consumers are dramatically reducing the amount they use only to be hit with higher water rates. Existing designs for deciding water rates are the culprits. A handful of cities are restructuring their billing systems to benefit conservation-minded consumers who deserve to be rewarded rather than penalized. Read more.

Leslie Dorworth, IISG aquatic ecology specialist has written several articles for Grist magazine about the Grand Calumet River. This one describes how things got so bad for this polluted waterway:

The Grand Calumet River is about 13 miles long and flows through one of the most industrialized areas in the United States. At one time, the river’s branches and tributaries flowed throughout northwest Indiana and supported globally unique fish and wildlife. Today, thanks to being moved and manipulated by humans over the years, the Calumet river system is one of the smallest watersheds in the region, and there are stretches of river that support nothing but sludge worms.

How did this happen? Two words: people and industry. Read more.

Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant is proud to announce that the program has won two 2010 APEX Awards for Publication Excellence.

The Medicine Chest, a new curriculum collection addressing the problem of disposal of unwanted medicines, won in the category Green Materials. This award is shared by Robin Goettel, associate director for education, Terri Hallesy, education specialist, Susan White, graphic designer, and Tracy Colin, communication assistant. The Medicine Chest gives educators a tool to create service-learning experiences for their students, while tackling an important environmental and human health concern.

The second APEX award went to the display Get Rid of Stuff Sensibly in the category One-of-a-Kind Green Publications. Named in this award are White and Irene Miles, communication coordinator. This display informs audiences of all ages about how to recycle, reuse, or sensibly dispose of medicines, electronics, fish and aquatic plants and more. It includes a colorful marble game that provides a fun way to think through ‘getting rid of stuff.’ On display at the Illinois State Fair and other venues, Get Rid of Stuff Sensibly has thus far engaged 4,600 people on the issue of sensible disposal.