Center for Great Lakes Literacy
The Center for Great Lakes Literacy (CGLL, pronounced like seagull!) develops and shares educational resources geared toward K-12. Most resources on this website are produced in the form of lesson plans for teachers.
Teach Me About the Great Lakes: Limnologist Make Up Lots of Words
Explore the origin story of the Great Lakes by listening to this Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant podcast episode. Micheal Twiss, a Professor Emeritus at Clarkson University in Canada, discusses the study of Limnology which is the study of freshwater bodies including lakes.
Great Lakes Piping Plovers Story Map
This educational outreach tool was developed to foster enthusiasm and support for recovery efforts. The StoryMap features interactive maps, photos, and videos.
Great Lakes Now
This collection of free lesson plans and corresponding videos from the award winning PBS television program engages students with science, math, and the Great Lakes.
H.O.M.E.S. at Home Webinar Series
Michigan Sea Grant and the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network bring you lots of ways to enjoy and learn about our freshwater seas right from your own home.This series of fun-filled, family-friendly videos are jam-packed full of Great Lakes fun facts, activity suggestions for your family, and daily challenges. Each video provides a high-energy experience that engages people of all ages in learning about the Great Lakes.
H.O.M.E. School
This is a series of online lessons about the Great Lakes for kids in grades K-8, brought to you by Alliance for the Great Lakes. The eight online sessions are filled with educational lessons on the Great Lakes and have interactive activities at the end of the video to use.
Lake Michigan Shipwrecks and Aquatic Invasive Species
This resource from Wisconsin Sea Grant has activities, stories, and learning objectives about shipwrecks and aquatic invasive species within Lake Michigan. Students can use this resource to discover more about what an invasive species is, how they interact in Lake Michigan, and specific species in Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes. Students will also be able to explore shipwrecks in Lake Michigan and see their ecological impacts inside Lake Michigan.
NOAA-Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
Explore a collection of communications products that translate research into factsheets, infographics, and other educational resources.
Water on the Web
The Wisconsin Water Library offers this online resource to kick- start your exploration of water-related topics. It is perfect if you need ideas for a research paper or a reliable source of water information.
What’s so great about the Great Lakes?
This TED-Ed video quickly sums up the greatness of this 23 quadrillion liter freshwater resource from the last Ice Age to the 3,500 species that it supports today.
Citizen Science
You can help with science! These crowdsourcing opportunities allow community members to contribute to research and outreach. This can be anything like
finding scientific research in your city,
following guides for experiments online, recording the amount and types of
litter on your local beach, and more.
The Great Lakes BioBlitz
Each spring from Earth Day to mid-May, Wisconsin Sea Grant hosts a basin-wide event that focuses on finding and identifying as many wild, living things as possible in the Canadian provinces and U.S. states that border the Great Lakes.
At Home on the Great Lakes
Shedd Aquarium, an aquarium in Chicago, Illinois, has an exhibit highlighting the beauty, creatures, and habitat of the Great Lakes. You can learn more about this exhibit by looking online at the fish, mammals, and reptiles that inhabit the Great Lakes, or learn more on the website about how to conserve the Great Lakes that contribute to our ecosystem.