Great Lakes workshop offers great opportunity

Teachers have a super opportunity to learn about Lake Erie’s ecosystem this summer in a weeklong workshop sponsored by the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence Great Lakes.

That’s a long name for an agency that works to promote the development of partnerships between research scientists and educators. It also distributes Great Lakes and ocean science information and works to foster best practices in education about ocean sciences’ relative to the Great Lakes.

Lake Erie is one of our greatest natural resources. Much has been done to clean up Erie, once considered perilously close to dying, and today the lake is a cornerstone of recreational and commercial opportunity for Ohio, surrounding states and Ontario, Canada.

Anglers know very well the prolific nature of Lake Erie. It supports what many claim is the world’s best walleye, smallmouth bass and yellow perch fishing. It draws travel and tourism dollars to Ohio’s North Coast, and is an asset far too valuable to take for granted.

When Lake Erie’s fishing is good, we enjoy it immensely. When it’s “off,” we wonder why and how soon it will recover.

No doubt the workshop will shed much light on that subject and many others.

The opportunity for schoolteachers to study and learn about Erie’s ecosystem is another forward step in the important mission of educating the public. Teachers who “graduate” from the workshop will be well-equipped to inspire their own pupils to appreciate and intensify efforts to preserve Lake Erie for the generations to come.

Teachers of grades four through 10 are invited to apply for the Lake Erie Exploration Workshop, scheduled July 18-24. Fifteen will be selected. Each will earn a $500 stipend on completion of the workshop requirements. Deadline for application is April 10.

As an angler who jumps at every chance to enjoy Erie’s bounty, I would only hope the list of applicants is long and full of teachers from the Youngstown area.

This region’s students are the very same people whose responsibility will be to carry on the caring for the Erie ecosystem. The better educated they are today, the more able they will be in the future to make Lake Erie pure and productive.

What’s more, the workshop sounds like it will be a true “exploration.”

Participants will see much of the Erie shore — from the Tom Ridge Environmental Center in Erie, Pa., to the Ohio State University F.T. Stone Laboratory at Put-in-Bay.

They also will get a chance to connect with scientists working at the forefront of Lake Erie research. They will study plankton and fish population dynamics, the invasive aquatic species, the geologic process, and the impacts of climate change, coastal development and pollution.

The workshop will include trips on research vessels in Lake Erie’s western basin and in kayaks through the Presque Isle lagoons. Shoreline excursions will include visits to Old Woman Creek Reserve, Kelley’s Island and other destinations.

Pretty impressive. If I were a teacher, my application would be in the mail this afternoon.

For more information, including application requirements, check out www.coseegreatlakes.net/events/leew.

jwwollitz@aol.com