53.4 Meters: the depth we dropped anchor today in search of a prize greater than oligochaetes or plankton. According to Guy Meadows, PhD. Director of the Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratories at the University of Michigan, who joined us today, the ridge that cuts through the lake may have been home to hunter-gatherers over 10,000 years ago. The Alpena-Amberly Ridge, once a causeway that connected Michigan to Ontario, is nearly 100 miles long and about forty miles east of Thunder Bay.

New high resolution bathymetry and progess in 3D modeling makes it possible for Dr. Meadows and his team to revisit this ancient community. Evidence of these early settlers is buried in the sediment and rocks covered with mussels and algae that line the lake. Using state of the art technology, surface towed side scan sonar and a remote operated vehicle (ROV), Dr. Meadows took us on a power point tour of the world below.

The waves were too high to set the ROV in, so our Lake Guardian techies set up the surface towed scanner.

After two attempts at using the scanner, our system went down, and we had to be satisfied with Professor Meadow’s photos. True to scientific inquiry, we were patient, disappointed and ready to look at this from another angle. We turned to the PONAR grab and abox core to investigate the ridge.

What a treat to find some fantastic samples of clay pieces in our sediment. The vertical samples were perfect and showed the layers found in this ancient ridge.

Log onto some of these websites to see more articles about Dr. Meadows’ work at the bottom of Lake Huron.

www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/science/230blake

www.jsonline.com/news/Ancient hunting site may rest under Lake Huron

www.freep.com/2009/07/05/Signs of Human Settlers

Pick your favorite quote for one of today’s photos.

a.]”I bleed for science…”
b.] “Science is in my blood…”
c.] “We eat, live, breathe, sleep and bleed science…”
d.] “Science never sleeps…”
e.] “We’re hurting to do science…” OR
f.] “I am a nerd…”

Eating - Thanks to Carl and Donna, we never are hungry!

Research Inquiry Aboard the Vessel

Even UW’s Bucky is deep into inquiry aboard the Lake Guardian.

Win A Free Flea-How Many Water Fleas in this Catch?

Will the Real Lobster Gumby Please Sit Down…

Quote of the Day: “Hunting caribou can be done with a baseball bat,” advised Professor Meadows.

Editor’s Note: In regards to the misspelling of the bathymetry in the first edition of this blog post, we have come up with the new technology of a Barfometer. As of today, it has yet to be used. We invite you to submit your owns designs for this device to the blog team. The winner will receive a well traveled pair of socks—courtesy of David.

Last night ended with a small shore leave for both participants and crew in Port Huron. After everyone had settled back in, the crew took shifts for staying on watch, and we enjoyed out first night in the little cubby holes we’re calling home for the week. While most of us slept like a rock, Ron woke up at 3:30. When he ventured out as the sun was rising, he saw a pink and orange sky with dark grey clouds looming overhead. He pondered for a moment and asked himself if this could “be a metaphor for the relationship of humans with the Earth system.” The rest of us started moving about 7:00 to watch the ship leave port at 7:45, but we had to wait for a freighter. One thing we’ve learned on this trip is that the schedule is always changing. As we traveled from the Seaway Terminal into Lake Huron, we passed several landmarks such as the Huron Lightship, the Bluewater Bridges, and the Fort Gratiot Lighthouse.

It was a little later than we had planned, but we finally got to do scientific sampling today. Group A started at Station 1 and did a Secchi disk measurement, sent down nets to collect phytoplankton and zooplankton, collected water samples in the Rosette, and tried to collect sediment from the bottom of the lake using a PONAR. They were only able to pick up sand and rocks, but they did find a few cute Quagga Mussels we could use as examples of invasive species in the Great Lakes. Group B meanwhile was hanging out on the O2 deck and making bets on how far down the Secchi measurement would be. Most thought it was less than 5 m, but Chuck was closest to the 8.3 with his guess of 7 meters.

When the sampling was over, we set sail for our next sampling area—Station 9. While we waited for the ship to make its destination, Jim Lubner gave an excellent presentation on the limnology of the Great Lakes. He gave us a brief glimpse of the geology, physics, chemistry, biology, and ecology of the lakes.

Dr. Greg Boyer walked through some of the cool creatures we’ll be finding under our microscopes. I think even with the handouts he gave, we’ll still be calling him over every time we see something new and exciting through the lens.

By now it was time for Group B to suit up and get their hands muddy. They collected the same samples as the first group, but at Station 9 they brought up some very cool mud from the lake bottom instead of rocks and sand. While this half played field scientist, the others worked in the laboratory analyzing water data and hunting for phytoplankton and zooplankton under the microscopes.

We took some time between samples to hear about the contaminants that are threatening our lakes system from Todd Nettesheim. He was very knowledgeable about the effects these pollutants have on the waterways. It was interesting to find out that chemicals such as DDT that have been banned for decades are still found and affect our water life. Beth Hinchey-Malloy, a Marine Biologist, delved deeper into the effects of these chemicals and other factors such as invasive species and cited how the marine organisms have changed over the years. The place of the most common creatures in the Great Lakes ecosystem twenty years ago have been replaced by others.

Dr. Boyer spoke on toxic cyanobacteria blooms. It was interesting to see the different factors that lead to these blooms. Even though most of the blooms are not dangerous to humans, Dr. Boyer mentioned a food chain that will make most of us think twice about seafood for a while. It was along the lines of “mussels eat the algae, the people eat the mussels, the people die.” Seems pretty concise and definitely an eye opener as far as how people are treating these blooms. Global warming was touched on in the lecture, but I think that the best tongue-in-cheek quote from the lecture was “The climate change is going to give us bigger pumpkins.”

It was pouring rain as we lifted our luggage over the guardrail then climbed over ourselves to access the ship. But, it wasn’t long before the clouds parted and we had a good laugh playing Gumbi in our safety gear survival/lobster suits. To finish off our safety training we learned about how to use the life boats. (Ohhh, The boat rocking right now sucks, thank God for the Sea Bands, ginger, patches, etc).

Four presentations filled the afternoon. Mary Bohling gave us information about coastal development and redevelopment in this region, Rose Ellison talked told us about water quality and coastal productivity (like fishing? come to Lake St. Clair!!), Patrick Livingston reviewed shipping, past and present, in this busy waterway, and Dave Schwab reviewed his fascinating water flow modeling that can forecast and hindcast. The weather was really interesting as it suddenly started raining while we all listened on the O2 deck. We were all applauded for staying for the remainder of the presentation despite the rain. Today we focused on the Huron to Erie corridor. The Canadian side contains a 100 + year old prairie that has not been touched (farm, development,etc) because it is owned by the Walpole nation!!

The open waters of Lake St. Clair looked a lot like the Florida Keys!

We docked in Port Huron for the night next to a tallship!

After a yummy dinner prepared by the wonderful cooks on board we worked a little bit on concept mapping and prepping for tomorrow. Here are a few quotes for the day from our team:

“The most intriguing things about today was how often the weather changed. It went from cold and rainy to hot and sticky to rainy again and then to hot and sticky.”

“Today I found out how much I have to learn about the Great Lakes. I also learned that the ship comes with a very talented kitchen staff. “

“I learned that Huron/Erie corridor is a straight not a “river” and has characteristics not like a lake or a river”

“Gumbi suits made a new fashion statement for us all”

“I don’t know if it’s the patch or the wrist bands but I’m not sea sick, Yeah”

“Oh, and man oh man those cooks can cook!”

“Whoa, information overload!”

How are we going to use all this information?

Today is the last day of the Lake Erie Exploration Workshop and now we have to figure out how to bring everything we learned this week into the classroom. To do this, we broke up into four groups based upon topic or target audience and we developed some ideas and lesson plans to teach the Great Lakes in our classrooms. Here are some of the ideas that we came up with:

Group #1: Shari Tennies, Rose Stark, Garry Dole, Cheryl Symans, and Carol Ward

The educators in group one were from a variety of different backgrounds. Some teach in formal classrooms and others work at nature centers or as teacher support specialists. As a group they decided that their target audience would be elementary students and here are some of their ideas.

• A “Is this person a scientist? “ hallway display showing pictures of scientists that we met throughout the week. Students would guess which picture was a scientist and then learn that they are all scientists. This would be great to show that scientists are “real people” too and it is an obtainable career no matter who you are.
• A coral reef sedimentation activity to show that the sediment and pollution that we add to our rivers, lakes, and streams eventually makes it out to the ocean and can damage our coral reefs.
• Adding Lake Erie and Great Lakes curriculum to existing ecology, land and water, and rocks and mineral units.
• Field trips to Lake Erie and other smaller local lakes to do water testing and microscope activities.
• Class adopt-a-beach clean-ups.
• An erosion activity where students look at maps and aerial photographs to measure the rate at which the beaches in their area are eroding.
• New exhibits featuring Lake Erie and the rest of the Great Lakes at the nature center.

Group #2: Heather Gee, Amanda Whitener, Carrie Caspio

The educators in group two also came from a variety of backgrounds. One is a junior high math teacher, one is a pre-service teacher completing an internship with NOAA, and the last one is an educator with the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. Together they planned out a water unit with three themes and then developed lessons within each of those themes.

• #1 – Where does water come from?
- Introduction activities on the water cycle and states of matter.
- “Incredible Journey” activity following a water molecule through the water cycle.
- Math activities on determining the volume of the Great Lakes and graphing data from a irrigation lab.

• #2 – Where does water go?
- Food web activities.
- A lab comparing ocean sand and sand found in the Great Lakes.
- A fish dissection.
- Guest speakers from the water and sewer boards.
- Math activities on plating the bacteria found in water and counting colonies and analyzing temperature change in the layers of the lake.
- Paddle to the Sea book and corresponding curriculum.

• #3 – Where do I fit in?
- Calculating your water use and the amount of personal care products that you use in a day.
- Invasive species and point versus non-point pollution activities.
- Decision making activities for younger students.

The educators in group three were all high school educators and they chose to create a three week unit on the Great Lakes.

• Week 1 – The Physical Characteristics of the Lakes
- Review the location of the great lakes using local to world maps.
- Use Pat Dailey’s “Great Lakes Song” as an introduction to the unit.
- Constructing “Great Lakes Cakes” project using various cakes, dyes, frostings, and candies to show the characteristics of each of the Great Lakes.
- Great Lake teams where the class is broken up into the five lakes and they research their specific lake and become a “specialist” on their lake.

• Week #2 – Water Quality
- Lake stratification demonstration.
- Water sampling and using the data to determine the water quality of the body of water.
- A seine simulation.
- A macroinvertebrate lab using a leaf pack left in a stream for a week.

• Week #3 – Life in the Great Lakes
- Invasive species research and invasive species puzzle.
- Plotting on a map where the invasive species come from and why.
- Fish: fish stories, external anatomy of a fish, using dichotomous keys to identify fish.
- A narrative where students write about a water molecule’s journey from your house all the way to the lake or from Duluth to the Atlantic Ocean.
- A personal reflection on their impact and lives within the Great lakes basin.

The educators in group four were either junior high or high school educators and they chose to focus on the geology of the Great Lakes for their lesson planning. Here are some of their ideas:
• Using the Great Lakes as a culminating unit at the end of 8th grade Earth Science to tie everything that they learned during the school year into a local topic.
• Make cards with pictures and information on the major events that occurred during geologic times in the Great Lakes basin and have the students try to put them in order.
• Using the football field to make a scale model of geologic time with great lake events.
• Using fossils to recreate the history of the Great Lakes and comparing our fossils to fossils found in other places (specifically North Carolina).
• Making and using dichotomous keys to identify fossils and modern day organisms.
• Linking geology to life science and the field of taxonomy to study animal phyla.
• Analyzing fossils to determine what type of environment they must have lived in.

Ah ha Moments

All in all it was a great week. We are all experts on Lake Erie and now we have the job of creating Lake Erie experts out of our students. Throughout the week there were many ah ha moments where a light bulb turned on in our heads. We can only hope that our experiences in this past week will help us to do the same for our students. Here are a sampling of some of our ah ha moments.

• Seeing a glacial groove and experiencing the true power of how glaciers carve our landscapes.
• Coming to the end of the road and finding a cliff instead of a the continuation of the road. Coastal Erosion!
• Male gobies change color when they spawn.
• Usually oceans are pointed to when we talk about the impacts of bodies of water on the weather. The Great Lakes also have a huge impact on our weather.
• There are fossils of organisms that lived in salt water seas 400 million years ago in Ohio!
• Things that we use everyday like shampoo, conditioner, hair gel, toothpaste, etc… can affect our lakes and drinking water.
• There are billions of round gobies in the Great Lakes! I didn’t know that the invasive species problem was that bad.

A Thank You

We would not have had this experience if it were not for the hard work by several individuals. We would like to thank all the scientists who gave their time to teach us about their research and we look forward to bringing their research to our students. We would also like to thank the staff at TREC in Erie, PA and the staff at the Stone Lab on Gibraltar Island. They were amazing and both locations were excellent for learning about Lake Erie. Lastly, we would like to thank the Sea Grant staff, who spent hundreds of hours organizing and perfecting this workshop. Rosanne, Marti, Helen, Lyndsey, and Howard…we and our students thank you so much!

What’s Really Down There?

Today’s topic was “Life in Lake Erie”. With our lectures, lab work and activities we got a great idea of what really is down below the surface of the lake. Not only did we find out who lives there but also how each of the species interact with each other and their environment—lake ecology.

Dr. Dave Jude, a biologist and ichthyologist from the University of Michigan gave a lecture to us providing us information on what the lake looked like in the past, what it looks like today and what the future may hold for Lake Erie. Characteristics of our lakes in the past were well oxygenated water, high biodiversity and well forested coast lines. As we compare that to what the lakes are today, things have changed. Much of the lake has seen destruction of habitat, invasion of exotic species, introduction of toxic substances, and over fishing. With the use of science and education we have designed ways to improve our lakes by finding ways to regulate fish species, controlling contaminants entering the system, and altering fishing regulations. We seemed to have learned from our mistakes in the past, but find that there are always new problems that throw the balance of the ecosystem out of balance. It is a constant challenge.

To get a better handle on what the present state of the lake is we took some actual samples from the lake to bring back to the lab for testing. The rainy day did not hold us back and we were able to collect phytoplankton and zooplankton using plankton nets. We also collected bottom sediment using a Ekman dredge and we even trawled for fish using a bottom trawl. With our boat full of specimens we headed back to the lab to really see who lives in Lake Erie.

Back at the lab all the teachers were excited to examine our catch. We set up stations in the room where we could view and identify phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic invertebrates and different species of fish. We combined all our identification data to come up with how each of the species fit into the many food chains in the lake.

Dr. John Gannon, Senior Scientist from the International Joint Commission, and ecologist, helped us interpret our data. He provided us a better understanding of the changing food web in the lake as invasive species are introduced, and our coastal waters that enter the lake change. The upper Great Lakes have a simple system compared to the highly diverse and productive system of Lake Erie. He stressed that we need a better understanding of ecology of our coastlines and put effort into habitat restoration of wetlands, streams and coastlines. To accomplish this educating the public will be vital as well as multidisciplinary science. This is where scientists from two different fields team together to improve and restore our Great Lakes.

This evening was spent in our work groups processing all the information that we took in these past 6 days. How are we going to take all this amazing information and put it to use in our classrooms? As teachers we look forward to organizing these experiences and knowledge in a fashion that we can excite our students to science and increase their appreciation of these Great Lakes. We all, young and old, need to be caretakers of the lake and voices for the future of the lakes.

Did you know?

- There are degree programs that combine both biology and engineering. Many different universities now have biosystems engineering programs where students learn how to use both biology and engineering to solve problems in biological systems.

- Botulism E contamination occurs from rotting algae, which is then filtered by zebra mussels, which in turn is eaten by round gobies, which are then eaten by Loons. A loon only needs to eat 2 gobies to die from botulism E poisoning.

- Fish have a stone-like structure called an otolith in their head that helps them to maintain their balance much like our inner ear. Scientists can use the rings on the otolith to determine the age of the fish to the exact day.