News Release

Investigating Water Quality: A Workshop for Educators in the Great Lakes Region

Date: February 25, 2019

PORTER, IN: On Saturday, March 16, educators, pre-service teachers, naturalists, interpreters, youth leaders, and anyone working with middle and high school aged youth are invited to enjoy a day-long workshop investigating educational activities dealing with water quality! This session will run from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and will be held at the Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education at Indiana Dunes National Park.

Participants will learn about watersheds and water quality issues. Teachers will discover how pharmaceuticals and personal care products impact our water, aquatic organisms, and our health. Participants will explore hands-on activities focused on water quality and the Great Lakes that can be brought back to their classroom or watershed to teach youth and adults how to become watershed stewards. Participants will also receive hands-on training with real monitoring equipment used by scientists in the field.  

Educators completing the workshop will receive a copy of the Healthy Water Healthy People Curriculum (produced by Project WET), and will be eligible to borrow the monitoring equipment for use with their respective youth during the school year!  (The equipment is loaned out through a program called Limno Loan, which is jointly run by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the USEPA Great Lakes National Program Office iiseagrant.org/limnoloan.) Participating educators who agree to engage their students in a watershed stewardship or water quality monitoring project will receive a $300 stipend from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant.  

There is a $10 workshop fee, pre-registration is required, and registration is limited. To register, visit the Dunes Learning Center's web page for this event  or call [phone] by March 8. This workshop is co-sponsored by Indiana Dunes National Park, IL-IN Sea Grant, Indiana University Northwest, Dunes Learning Center, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and the Great Lakes Research and Education Center.