This 4-H curriculum, designed for informal education audiences, provides five inquiry-based lessons to help high school youth understand the harmful effects of improper disposal of medicines and what they can do to help. Each lesson contains a complete instruction plan, centered on a hands-on activity for the students. Our goals for The Medicine Chest are to: Offer comprehensive curricula on the issues surrounding pharmaceuticals and personal care products disposal; Incorporate a variety of educational approaches for instructing high school-level students; Support community stewardship by offering creative project examples and guidance that will inform the public about appropriate disposal practices; and Explore a variety of careers that work with pharmaceuticals and personal care products. We dedicate The Medicine Chest to our youth who are working to make a significant difference in their communities as they develop important lifelong learning skills, including leadership and civic responsibility.

To use these resources, visit: http://iiseagrant.org/medicinechest/.

Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s annual magazine.

This issue highlights:

• Swimming Safer: Sharing knowledge, data, and resources
• IISG interns can have invaluable real world experience
• Spelling out nature’s benefits helps inform land use decisions
• Largemouth bass in the busy Chicago River are seeking out natural areas
• Educators explore water quality along the Wild Mile
• We’re funding new research to address emerging coastal issues

This 4-H curriculum, designed for informal education audiences, provides five inquiry-based lessons to help high school youth understand the harmful effects of improper disposal of medicines and what they can do to help. Each lesson contains a complete instruction plan, centered on a hands-on activity for the students.

This program provides the opportunity for educators to borrow actual monitoring equipment used by scientists in the field and for students to experience collecting and analyzing real water-quality data. It is a great way to bring to life the topic of water quality for your students, and bring the outdoors to your classroom or your classroom outdoors!

For more detailed information, visit Limno Loan

A curriculum for integrating real-time buoy data as a teaching tool about Lake Michigan conditions and current issues.

This quick reference guide is a supplement resource for the Know Your H2O water quality testing kit. The guide takes you step-by-step through basic procedures for measuring dissolved oxygen and temperature using the YSI Pro 20i dissolved oxygen meter and pH using an EcoSense pH pen. It also provides testing procedures for La Motte chemical tests to measure alkalinity, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, iron, and phosphate levels in water.

The use of live crayfish in classrooms has been identified as a pathway for the introduction of invasive crayfish into our local waterways. To address this issue, the Investigating Crayfish and Freshwater Ecosystems curriculum was developed to teach students about Great Lakes ecosystems, the significance of native crayfish, and the ecological threats posed by invasive crayfish. It contains nine lesson plans aligned to Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core State Standards, and Center for Great Lakes Literacy Principles. The curriculum is best suited for students in grades 6-12 but offers numerous adaptations/extensions to meet the divergent needs of students in grades 2–5.

This document is available on the Invasive Crayfish Collaborative website: https://invasivecrayfish.org/crayfish-curriculum/

This is a quick summary of IISG’s opportunities and resources to help teachers and other educators increase their Great Lakes literacy, and ultimately that of their students.

This curriculum can engage upper elementary and high school students in Great Lakes environmental stewardship. It is designed for schools located in Areas of Concern (AOC) but can apply to any Great Lakes community where large scale environmental cleanup projects are ongoing.