A middle school student steadies a rowing shell along the mighty Cuyahoga River. Another one checks wind direction before raising a sail. They aren\u2019t thinking about fluid dynamics, force vectors or watershed science. Yet they\u2019re experiencing all three.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake a child through a forest, and watch how they start thinking about the habitat around them,\u201d says Mike Trebilcock, co-founder with his wife, Gina, of The Foundry. \u201cDraw an analogy to the river and lake. When they open their eyes, they\u2019re seeing a completely different environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
This philosophy took a major step forward in June with the opening of the Patrick S. Parker Community Sailing Center at Cleveland Metroparks\u2019 East 55th Street Marina. It expands access to rowing, sailing and an array of STEM-centered programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe the water is for everyone,\u201d says Trebilcock.<\/p>\n
And Lake Erie is the ultimate learning lab \u2014 it\u2019s one of Northeast Ohio\u2019s most dynamic classrooms. Across the region, educators, scientists and community organizations are bringing STEM to life through hands-on exploration and discovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to get across is the natural resource, the cultural resource, the economic resource and the drinking water resource that Lake Erie is to us,\u201d says Mary Rouse, director of outdoor experiences for Cleveland Metroparks.<\/p>\n
Current Events\u00a0<\/p>\n
A fish flops in a metal bin as students drop to their knees for a closer look. One eagerly reaches for a scalpel. Another peers into a microscope at plankton no bigger than grains of pepper. Across the room, someone lets out a \u201cWhoa!\u201d while watching minuscule heartbeats inside the transparent organism.<\/p>\n
This is Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island, and its programs transform Lake Erie into a hands-on STEM classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Operated by Ohio State University in\u00a0partnership with Ohio Sea Grant, the island field station welcomes about 2,700 students each spring and fall for immersive field experiences that take learning from textbooks to research vessels, laboratories and the lake itself.<\/p>\n
Students spend time aboard research vessels collecting fish and plankton before bringing their discoveries back to the lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see lots of giggling, oohs-and-aahs and screaming,\u201d says Chris Winslow, executive director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Lab. \u201cIt all happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some have never seen a fish up close, let alone dissected one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learn about how to identify the body parts in different species, and they get a real look inside at what we pulled up from 25 feet below the boat,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for those funny floaters dredged up from below, \u201cIf it\u2019s something transparent that\u2019s been eating algae, they\u2019ll see a little green line through the organism as the algae moves through its stomach,\u201d Winslow points out to students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They witness a real speck of lake life at work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey realize the lake has a color to it,\u201d Winslow continues. \u201cWhen you put the water in a jar, that greenness, those are little plants growing in real time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For many, it\u2019s their first trip onto the lake.<\/p>\n
\u201cStone Lab is a life-changing inflection point in many of the students\u2019 lives,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those experiences help students understand the big and the small of the Great Lakes, Winslow points out. Together, they hold about 20% of the world\u2019s surface freshwater, and the way we behave around our watersheds matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we do on the landscape and what runs off our parking lots goes into that lake and alters that ecosystem,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can\u2019t manage what you don\u2019t measure. If we can get more kids and adults on the water and craving that information, we can do good things with these Great Lakes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A middle school student steadies a rowing shell along the mighty Cuyahoga River. Another one checks wind direction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-271193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}