Project WET Award

Janet Vail received an achievement award at the national Project WET (Water Education Today) conference held last week.  (It was a virtual conference.)   Project WET is a premier environmental education program in both the United States and other countries.  “Advancing water education to understand global challenges and inspire local solutions” is the mission of Project WET.  See www.projectwet.org.

Janet has served as the Michigan Project WET coordinator for twenty years.  She oversees a network of workshop facilitators throughout Michigan who deliver professional development workshops.  Michigan Project WET helps to facilitate water festivals for children, including the annual water festival in Big Rapids.  Janet organized a successful national Project WET conference, which was held in Traverse City in 2017.  She has been involved in the development of the Project WET curriculum and alignment of curriculum to K-12 science standards.  She served two terms on the Project WET USA Coordinator’s Advisory Council, which provides advice and recommendations on policy, operations, and implementation of the Project WET USA programs.

It is her hope that Project WET eventually will produce a Project WET Great Lakes activity booklet for children.  There has been interest from Project coordinators in the Great Lakes states to assemble a team to make this happen if funding can be found.     

Bopi Biddanda’s lab deployed The Muskegon Lake Observatory buoy on July 30th with the support of the NOAA vessel.

Charlyn Partridge participated in a discussion with the newly formed Michigan Cohort COVID Waste Water Sampling team on July 23^rd. This meeting was to discuss the potential of AWRI’s involvement with testing wastewater samples for COVID-19 as a monitoring effort. This would mainly involve the Rediske Lab, since the group is also heavily involved in beach monitoring, but she is interested in participating in the method development.

Charlyn Partridge had a meeting with Alex Wieten from the Gun Lake Tribe on July 17^th to discuss projects to assess wild rice populations in Michigan. She put together method options for their project and price estimates and submitted those to Alex on July 23^rd.

Rick Rediske’s public comments from last month’s Wolverine Community Advisory Group meeting were discussed in an article by MLive.  https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2020/06/questions-raised-about-adequacy-of-rogue-river-pfas-testing.html.

Carl Ruetz attended a virtual seminar hosted by Aaron Fisk (University of Windsor) titled “New insight and future directions in Great Lakes food webs” on July 22^nd. The seminar was sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research and NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

Al Steinman’s lab continues their monitoring work on Lake Macatawa, Muskegon Lake, and Bear Creek and its restored wetlands.

Al Steinman was interviewed by Masters students from the Univ. of Michigan about developing community sustainability goals for the Grand Traverse region.

Janet Vail attended the GLOBE Virtual Annual meeting on July 13^th – 16^th.  People from over 100 countries were involved in the event.

Janet Vail completed the Climate Reality Leadership training, which was delivered virtually from July 18^th - July 26^th.  The Climate Reality Leadership Corps is a global network committed to spreading awareness of the climate crisis and working for solutions.  Former Vice President Al Gore presented most of the sessions.

Janet Vail attended the Project WET annual conference from July 28^th – 30^th. This virtual event draws Project WET coordinators from throughout the United States.  Janet was on the planning committee for the conference.

Janet Vail began serving as a Great Lakes representative on the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML) Education Committee.  The first charge of the committee is to draft a work plan, which will likely involve a survey of education efforts in the various laboratories.

Janet Vail has been in discussions with a group working on a NASA GLOBE citizen science proposal “Snow-GLOBE Youth Citizen Science Collaborative for Advancing the Understanding, Validation, and Algorithm Development of NASA and NOAA Snowfall Retrievals in the Great Lakes Region”.

AWRI staff are bolded, undergraduate students are denoted with a single asterisk*, graduate students are denoted with two asterisks**, and post-doc researchers are donated with three asterisks ***.

Publications

Sarah Lamar, former graduate student who worked with Charlyn Partridge, has an article based on her thesis work, accepted to the journal Ecology and Evolution:
Lamar, S.K.**, Beddows, I., and Partridge, C.G. 2020. Examining the molecular mechanisms contributing to the success of an invasive species across different ecosystems. Ecology and Evolution. bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.23.003434

Dan Myers, recent master's student who worked with Rick Rediske, had an article, based on his thesis work, published in Modeling Earth Systems and Environment:
Myers, D.T.L.**, Rediske, R.R., McNair, J.N., and Allen, M.E.** 2020. Watershed and streambank erosion modeling in a coldwater stream using the GWLF-E model: application and evaluation. Modeling Earth Systems and Environment.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s40808-020-00882-y

Carl Ruetz and his former graduate student Greg Chorak are co-authors of an article in press in the Journal of Great Lakes Research:
Senegal, T., Ruetz, C.R. III, Chorak, G.M.**, Janetski, D.J., Clapp, D.F., Bowen, G.J., and Höök, T.O. In Press. Differential habitat use patterns of yellow perch Perca flavescens in eastern Lake Michigan and connected drowned river mouth lakes. Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Carl Ruetz and others from AWRI have an article in press in the Journal of Applied Ichthyology:
B.S. Harris**, Ruetz, C.R. III, Ellens, T.J.**, Biddanda, B.A. and Weinke, A.D.**. In Press. Adult lake sturgeon movements in the Muskegon River system, a Lake Michigan drowned river mouth, USA. Journal of Applied Ichthyology.

Al Steinman is a co-author on an article in press in Journal of Great Lakes Research:
Steinman, A.D., Scott, J., Green, L., Partridge, C., Oudsema, M., Hassett, M. Kindervater, E., and Rediske, R. In Press. Persistent organic pollutants, metals, and the bacterial community composition associated with microplastics in Muskegon Lake (MI). Journal of Great Lakes Research. 

Al Steinman and Emily Kindervater have an article in press in Inland Waters:
Steinman, A.D. and Kindervater, E. In Press. Ecosystem restoration in the Everglades and Great Lakes ecosystems: past, present, and future preventive management. Inland Waters.

Al Steinman is a co-author on an article in press in Environmental Science and Pollution Research:
Wan, X., Steinman, A.D., Gu, Y., Zhu, G., Xue, Q., and Xie, L. 2020. Occurrence and potential risk   assessment of microcystin and its relationship with environmental factors in lakes of Eastern Plain Ecoregion, China. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10384-0. 

Sean Woznicki has an article in press in Science of the Total Environment:
Woznicki, S.A., Cada, P., Wickham, J., Schmidt, M., Baynes, J., Mehaffey, M., and Neale, A. 2020. Sediment retention by natural landscapes in the conterminous United States. Science of the Total Environment. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140972.

Presentations

Matt Allen, graduate student working with Rick Rediske, successfully defended his thesis on water quality in Flower Creek/Little Flower Creek on July 10^th.

Jasmine Mancuso, graduate student working with Bopi Biddanda, successfully defended her thesis on phytoplankton blooms in Muskegon Lake on July 2^nd.

Charlyn Partridge was invited to present her work on using airborne eDNA methods for hemlock woolly adelgid to the 6^th annual Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Manager’s meeting on July 28^th.

Al Steinman presented a virtual webinar titled “Managing Water Resources in Michigan by Watersheds: Fact, Fiction, Frustration” on July 29^th.  The seminar was sponsored by the Michigan Water Environment Association.

Janet Vail received an award at the annual Project WET (Water Education Today) conference, held July 28^th – 30^th, for being the Michigan coordinator for 20 years.  Also, she was acknowledged for organizing the Project WET conference that was held in Traverse City in 2017.

The Steinman lab received an award of $51,000 (total grant: $135,000) from the MI Department of Natural Resources, working with the Allegan County Conservation District, to create a phosphorus budget for the Green Lake Cisco Protection Project.

AWRI In The News

July 8, 2020: Al Steinman’s interview with WOOD-TV regarding algal blooms in Lake Michigan

July 21, 2020: Al Steinman’s interview on Great Lakes issues with Peter Sinclair, Yale Climate Connections

July 24, 2020: Al Steinman’s interview with Lexi Krupp, Interlochen Radio on Great Lakes temperatures: https://www.interlochenpublicradio.org/post/why-lake-michigan-was-ten-degrees-hotter-it-should-have-been

LMC Events

There were no events held at the LMC.