Today was a great day! We started our busy day with a visit to Mercyhurst College to see Steve Mauro. Steve does e.coli research in Presque Isle. His research looks at the sources of e.coli entering into the lake and along with his students, he measures the e.coli levels twice a week to determine swimming advisories. He showed us how to conduct the tests and how we could conduct similar tests in our classrooms. He was an amazing teacher and I think all of us were wishing that we would have had him as a professor when we were in college.

After our talk with Steve we met with Jeanette Schnars to talk about turtles in Presque Isle State Park. She looks at nesting behaviors of the local turtles and contaminant levels in their shells. Check out the pictures of her “friends” that she brought along.

Helen finished up our talks for the day by giving us a rundown on invasive species in the Great Lakes. Our students love talking about animals so we were all excited about incorporating invasive species into our curriculum.

This evening we had some free time and several of us used the time to enjoy the beautiful beaches of Presque Isle State Park. A lot of visitors to the park were combing the beaches looking for sea glass, so we joined in. It was a great treasure hunt. We also had the opportunity to explore the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. We saw the movie “Mysteries of the Great Lakes” on the big green screen and then we climbed the tower to get a birds-eye view of Lake Erie.

To end our night we had a great discussion on personal care products and how they end up in our water systems. Think of all of the products that you put on your body in a day…lotions, shampoo, condition, deodorant, etc…Where do they go when you wash or when you go swimming? Do our water treatment facilities filter those products out before recycling them water back into the system? What about medicines? Pharmaceuticals get into out water system by direct flushing or by passing through our bodies unused and they are not filtered by our water systems either. What are the consequences to this? Unfortunately we do not know yet.

Did You Know?
- There is more bacteria in us and on us than the number of cells in our entire bodies
- The sex of a baby turtle can be determined by the temperature of the egg in the clutch
- The world releases more than 2 million gallons of personal care products into our water system every day

Welcome to Erie, Pennsylvania!!! 18 participants traveled from all over the Great Lakes basin to participate in this year’s workshop. One educator even traveled all the way from North Carolina! The purpose of the workshop is for non-formal and formal educators to gain a better understanding of this small, but very productive lake. All week we will be conducting experiments, visiting and sampling different places on Lake Erie, listening to scientists discuss their research, and then figuring out ways that we can bring this all into our classrooms. It is going to be an action-packed week.
We started out the day at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center with some introductions and then Helen Domske led a couple activities from the GOGL (Greatest of the Great Lakes) CD.

We couldn’t stay in the classroom all day, so we then headed out to Presque Isle State Park. As we drove through the park it was a great intro into beginning our understanding of Lake Erie. We saw evidence of wave action, sandy beaches, pristine wetlands, and protected canals. We were also lucky enough to get to experience the beautiful wetlands and canals from canoes and kayaks. We all enjoyed the paddle and had only one small mishap. One of our participants has a new name - “flip”. On our paddle Kathleen Ryan provided us with a description and history of the Graveyard Pond. It is called Graveyard Pond because in 1813-1814 many of the men under Oliver Hazard Perry’s command during the War of 1812 got smallpox. They were quarantined in Presque Isle and many of them died and their bodies were laid to rest in Graveyard Pond. I am glad that I heard this after I got out of my kayak or I would have been thinking about dead bodies the entire time I was paddling. Since then, canals have been dredged to connect the ponds and they are now open to non-motorized recreation.

Our evening started with a water taxi ride around the bay and then a getting-to-know-you dinner at the Sloppy Duck. Upon our return to TREC (Tom Ridge Environmental Center), Howard introduced us to concept mapping, a knowledge visualizing tool, which we will be using throughout the week. We also discussed Ocean Literacy and how COSEE and this workshop will help us to improve our student’s ocean literacy and help us to infuse it into our curriculum.

Did You Know?
- 90% of the water going into Lake Erie comes from the Detroit River
- Lake Superior looks like a wolf’s head
- Lake Huron has the most shoreline out of all of the Great Lakes
- Commander Perry was the first to say “Don’t give up the ship” and “We have met the enemy and they are ours…” in the battle of Lake Erie
- There are native species of phragmites living in Lake Erie