GLIN==> Press release: See Teachers' Learning Experiences on Lake Ontario Exploration Blog

Thank you to media already carrying stories; those who have not may wish to
highlight the blog noted below... Any of the jpgs seen on the blog are
available by email request specifying date/day and number of image with high
or low res need, send to Paul.Focazio at stonybrook.edu

Press Release: July 30, 2010
Contact:  Kara Lynn Dunn, 315-465-7578; Paul Focazio, 516-250-0116
  
See Teachers¹ Learning Experiences on Lake Ontario Exploration Blog
 
Lake Ontario/NY ‹ To see 4th-10th grade educators from New York, North
Carolina and Pennsylvania enjoying fabulous hands-on ³teach the teachers²
opportunities on the week-long Lake Ontario Exploration tour organized by
New York Sea Grant and the Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence
Great Lakes with sponsorship by the National Science Foundation and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, go online to the blog at
http://coseegreatlakes.net/weblog/category/2010-lake-ontario-exploration-wor
kshop.

New York Sea Grant Web Content Manager and Northeast Sea Grant
Communications Representative Paul Focazio created the lively showcase of
photographs and activities experienced by the fifteen (15) teachers visiting
sites in Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Rochester, and Oswego, including
universities, field stations, an aquarium, a bathysphere biological lab, the
Eastern Lake Ontario dunes system, a fish hatchery, and a maritime museum.
 
Award-winning New York Sea Grant Coastal Education Specialist Helen Domske
introduced the teachers to geologists, researchers, US Fish and Wildlife
biologists, representatives of the Tuscarora Nation Haudenosaunee
Environmental Management Council, and New York Sea Grant educators teaching
on geospatial mapping and aquatic invasive species. The teachers also had
time to create classroom lesson plans based on their experiences.
 
The teachers heard from three New York Sea Grant (NYSG)-funded researchers:

·      Buffalo State College Biologist Dr. Randal J. Snyder is the project
leader for a two-year, $139K New York Sea Grant ³Understanding alewives
lives improves salmon fishery management² project designed to improve
understanding and accurate forecasting of the condition and growth of
alewives, an important component of the Great Lakes food web. Dr. Snyder is
evaluating how lake temperature, ration size and prey composition influence
alewife growth and condition. Given the dramatic changes occurring in the
Great Lakes food webs, development of accurate measures of alewife condition
and growth will improve fisheries managers¹ ability to optimize salmonine
stocking rates, forecast how changes in food webs or abiotic factors will
affect alewife populations, and better predict the impact of alewives on
their prey populations.

·      SUNY College at Buffalo Biologist Dr. Christopher M. Pennuto is the
project leader for ³Assessing Barriers to Round Goby Invasion of Great Lake
Tributary Streams,² the two-year, $101K New York Sea Grant project that
wrapped up late last year. The exotic round goby has had a significant
impact in the Great Lakes and is expanding its range. There is concern over
its ecological impact to tributary streams and how readily the goby will
expand upstream. ³Our assessment of round goby swimming performance should
enable us to collaborate with engineers in developing fish passage designs,²
says Pennuto.

·       University at Buffalo investigator Joseph F. Atkinson¹s project on
the Development of Resource Sheds in the Great Lakes, other Aquatic
Ecosystems was a two-year, $136K New York Sea Grant project completed late
last year. Atkinson and his team created a web-based tool that allows users
to plot a resource shed for Lake Ontario or Lake Erie at any location of
interest. After undergoing testing off-and-on for about a year, Atkinson
says, ³this tool will be able to plot resource sheds not only for the
long-term average hydrodynamic conditions originally proposed but also for a
set of historic conditions, for years since about 2000.² His team¹s findings
were published earlier this year in an Environmental Science and Technology
journal article. He adds, ³Our goal was to develop the concept of resource
sheds to help scientists and managers better understand the large scale
physical processes that are the forcing factors that underlie many important
Great Lakes issues, such as hypoxic zones, contamination spread, population
declines and disease outbreaks.
 
Teacher Kristin Sheehan of Pulaski, NY, summed up the experience by saying,
³It solidifies the idea that the best kinds of learning are hands-on.²

For more information, contact New York Sea Grant Coastal Education
Specialist Helen Domske at 631-632-6956. # # #
 
Presenters on the 2010 Lake Ontario Exploration tour included:
·       Dr. Joseph F. Atkinson, University of Buffalo, NYSG-funded
researcher
·       Susan Diachun, geologist, Fort Niagara State Park, Youngstown
·       Lucina Hernandez, director, Rice Creek Field Station, SUNY Oswego
·       Nordica Holochuck, Hudson Estuary Specialist, New York Sea Grant
·       Dr. Susan Hoskins, geospatial mapping educator, Cornell University
·       Mercedes Niess, H Lee White Marine Museum Executive Director, Oswego
·       Chuck O¹Neill, New York Sea Grant Interim Associate Director and
aquatic invasive species specialist, Brockport/Ithaca
·       Mary Penney, Eastern Lake Ontario Dune and Salmon River Habitat
Coordinator, New York Sea Grant, Oswego
·       Dr. Bill Edwards, Niagara University
·       Dr. Chris Pennuto, SUNY Buffalo biologist, NYSG-funded researcher
·       Rene Rickard, Haudenosaunee Environmental Management Council,
Tuscarora Nation
·       Peter Robson, technical education educator, Bathysphere Underwater
Biological Lab, Rochester Museum of Science
·       Dr. Randal J. Snyder, Buffalo State College biologist, NYSG-funded
researcher
·       US Fish & Wildlife biologists Mike Goehle and Denise Clay
·       Fran Verdoliva, New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation Special Programs Coordinator, Salmon River Fish Hatchery,
Altmar
·       Howard Walter, Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence
evaluator

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