As of late October, most of the Great Lakes are experiencing lower-than-average water levels, with Lake Superior and Lake Michigan-Huron showing some of the most notable declines. Read the full story by SooToday.com.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251031-water-levels
Hellbenders, North America’s largest amphibian, are an endangered species and an indicator of good water quality in Ohio’s streams. The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium recently released 116 eastern hellbender salamanders as part of a program that stretches back a decade. Read the full story by the Akron Beacon Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251031-hellbender
On Michigan’s Beaver Island, located in Lake Michigan, the cost to ferry a vehicle back and forth to the mainland can be a steep deterrent to removing broken down cars that end up leaking fluids into the water supply. A recent project is cleaning up the clunker cars. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251031-beaver-island-junkcars
Duluth, Minnesota – At its Annual Meeting, held this week on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, the Great Lakes Commission (GLC) passed resolutions calling for advancement of non-potable water reuse and coordinated resource management in the development of AI and computing infrastructure, as well as prevention of plastic pollution and harmonization of stormwater management in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River region.
“The economy of the Great Lakes region is supported by access to water — from industry to agriculture and outdoor recreation to shipping,” said GLC Executive Director Erika Jensen. “Our commissioners have noted a growing need to understand the impacts that new technologies will have on the Great Lakes and the roles that water recycling and reuse can play.”
At the meeting, the GLC also elected new leadership: Chair Timothy Bruno, Great Lakes Program Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and Vice Chair James Jennings, Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
“I’m honored for the opportunity to serve as chair of the Great Lakes Commission,” said Chair Bruno. “This critical agency brings the region together to work on issues that no single community, state, province, or nation can tackle alone. On behalf of the GLC, I’d also like to extend our gratitude to immediate past chair Mary Mertz, director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, for her incredible leadership over her two terms as chair of the agency.”
The Annual Meeting featured remarks from Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert and journalist Peter Annin, author of Purified: How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water and The Great Lakes Water Wars and executive director of the Burke Center for Ecosystem Research. Attendees also heard from expert panels on microplastics, harmful algal blooms, and water reuse and students participating in environmental programs at Duluth Public Schools. On Wednesday evening, attendees celebrated the 70th anniversary of the GLC, which was established in 1955 by the Great Lakes Basin Compact. The Compact was ratified by the Great Lakes state legislatures and granted consent by the U.S Congress in 1968.
In advance of the meeting, GLC leadership planted two trees on the Superior Hiking Trail. As a founding member of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Trees and Green Events initiatives, the GLC has committed to using sustainable practices at its meetings and supporting the initiative’s goal of planting 250 million trees in the Great Lakes basin by 2033. The GLC also hosted a tour of the St. Louis River Estuary on the Duluth River Train; representatives of the Minnesota and Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa outlined remediation and restoration work underway in the estuary. Additionally, the GLC hosted a screening of the film Ripples of Plastic, which explores the unseen impacts of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, including contamination, microplastics, and human health effects, and a conversation with the filmmaker.
The GLC will next convene in Washington, D.C. for its Semiannual Meeting and Great Lakes Day on March 3-5, 2026. More information will be available on the GLC’s website in advance of the meeting.
The Great Lakes Commission, led by chair Timothy J. Bruno, Great Lakes Program Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, is a binational government agency established in 1955 to protect the Great Lakes and the economies and ecosystems they support. Its membership includes leaders from the eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces in the Great Lakes basin. The GLC recommends policies and practices to balance the use, development, and conservation of the water resources of the Great Lakes and brings the region together to work on issues that no single community, state, province, or nation can tackle alone. Learn more at www.glc.org.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/news/am-103025
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.b28612f4990a11d0d8164e70f7a02bfb77d36707.001.1.cap
Lawmakers from around the Great Lakes are hoping to make the area a little greener. Members from the Great Lakes Commission planted trees on Tuesday near Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth, Minnesota. It’s part of a regional goal to plant 250 million trees around the Great Lakes by 2033. Read the full story by Northern News Now.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-commission-tree-planting
Far from Gulf Coast hurricanes and California wildfires, Chicagoland seems like a safe place to be in a warming world. But is it? Read the full story by WBBM-TV – Chicago, IL.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-chicaog-climate-haven
At least 89 confirmed fair-weather waterspouts and funnels were reported to the International Centre for Waterspout Research this past week, but continued activity is unlikely. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-waterspouts
More than 300 students from schools in Ohio and Michigan learned about different careers associated with the Great Lakes as part of the National Museum of the Great Lakes’ career fair event. Read the full story by the Toledo Blade.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-career-fair
Construction of a proposed data center in Hermantown, Minnesota, just off the shore of Lake Superior would include up to four buildings housing equipment on more than 200 acres. Some are concerned about the non-disclosure agreements protecting the interest and trade secrets of companies constructing this center. Read the full story by the North Shore Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-superior-data-center
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum located in Paradise, Michigan, is closing out what appears to be a record-breaking season on Friday with ticket sales possibly surpassing 80,000 before the season ends. Read the full story by WWTV-TV – Cadillac, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-museum-ticket-sales
Earlier this month, the state of Illinois announced it had acquired land needed to move along the Brandon Road Interbasin Project, a $1.15 billion barricade aimed at keeping invasive carp from entering the channel that connects the Mississippi River Basin with the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Outdoor News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-brandon-road-project
Behind thick museum glass at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum sits a 200-pound bronze bell, the centerpiece of an exhibit honoring one of Lake Superior’s most famous maritime tragedies. Read the full story by the MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-fitzgerald-bell
The Great Lakes Writers Festival has been bringing together students, readers, writers and authors since 1991. This year, the two-day festival, which is free of charge, will include readings, book signings, master classes and open mic sessions. Read the full story by the Sheboygan Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-gl-writers-festival
By Isabella Figueroa Nogueria
Frank Boles, a retired Central Michigan University historian, has spent decades documenting Michigan’s past. His latest book, “Visiting Mackinac: 150 Years of Tourism at Michigan’s Fabled Straits,” explores how Mackinac Island and the surrounding Straits region became a hub for travelers from across the country.
The post New book shares how Mackinac Island became Michigan’s tourism gem first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.Great Lakes Echo
https://greatlakesecho.org/2025/10/29/new-book-shares-how-mackinac-island-became-michigans-tourism-gem/
By Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, WBEZ
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for WBEZ newsletters to get local news you can trust.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/10/illinois-one-step-closer-to-keeping-invasive-carp-out-of-great-lakes/
Throughout November, Studio 23 Gallery, an art studio in Bay City, Michigan, is presenting the biennial exhibition “50 Artists of the Great Lakes Bay Region.” Read the full story by the WCMU Public Media.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251029-great-lakes-artists
On October 2, a tour group with the East River Collaborative gathered on Webster Avenue in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to learn how the median, bristling with native grasses and late-season blooms, serves as both a sponge and spot of beauty along this busy stretch of road.
“These plant species offer aesthetic value. They also offer pollinator habitat,” explained Adam Meade, a stormwater engineering technician with the city of Green Bay who maintains the median. “And the real key thing is that they treat stormwater.”
The shallow, vegetated depressions, known as bioswales, were one stop on the East River Collaborative’s tour of green stormwater infrastructure projects across the city. The event brought together local municipalities and environmental organizations to learn about natural ways to slow, absorb, and treat runoff. For Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Julia Noordyk, who helped organize the tour, it was a showcase of possibilities.
“We wanted to give people the opportunity to see green stormwater infrastructure in person and ask questions about the design, costs, and lessons learned,” she said. “These projects are possible, and they can take many forms.”
Adam Meade explains the Webster Avenue bioswales, which are located in the median of the road behind him. Photo: Wisconsin Sea Grant
Unlike traditional infrastructure, which relies on impermeable surfaces like pipes, gutters, and ditches to transport stormwater away from other impermeable surfaces like roads and parking lots, green stormwater infrastructure mimics the way water moves in nature and encourages it to soak into the ground where it falls. That absorption is a good thing. It means fewer contaminants running into waterways and — key to the East River Collaborative’s mission — less flooding.
The collaborative formed in response to historic flooding of the East River in March 2019, which impacted both Green Bay and neighboring communities. Since then, the group has brought together municipal, state, federal, nonprofit, and university partners to build resilience to floods across the East River Watershed. Much of their work revolves around education so partners feel empowered to make choices that make sense for their communities.
“We really want to use this platform to share knowledge and expertise and funding sources with each other,” said Kari Hagenow, a coastal resilience specialist with The Nature Conservancy who helped plan the tour. “So, building the capacity of our partners — that’s what the focus is today.”
The field tour stopped at four locations across Green Bay — the NEW Water campus, Webster Avenue, Eliza Street, and Danz Park — and showcased three different types of green stormwater infrastructure.
A car drives past the bioswales. Photo: Wisconsin Sea Grant
Built in 2019 as part of a multimillion dollar road reconstruction project, the seven bioswales stretch nearly a mile along Webster Avenue. Curb cuts allow runoff from the road to flow into the shallow depressions, where native plants soak up water and filter contaminants that would have otherwise run directly into storm sewers. The bioswales relieve pressure on the stormwater system and offer natural beauty along one of Green Bay’s main thoroughfares.
They do require some maintenance. “[The bioswales] are the low points of the road,” Adam Meade said. “They’re going to collect all the runoff. So, what that means too is all the trash and debris and sand.”
Increased maintenance in spring, however, is offset by lower maintenance needs in summer. Unlike conventional turf grass medians, the bioswales only require occasional mowing along the borders so plants don’t encroach on the road.
A section of NEW Water’s parking lot is permeable pavement. Photo: Wisconsin Sea Grant
Pavement that allows water to run through it, rather than over it, was on display at two sites on the tour. NEW Water, the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District, recently installed 2,200 square feet of permeable pavers in its parking lot. Water flows into spaces between interlocking pavers, where it filters through several layers of gravel before entering the storm sewer.
The Eliza Street pavers, located at the bottom of a hill in a residential neighborhood, are a different brand but function similarly. They can capture over 1,000 inches of rain per hour, storing and cleaning runoff before it enters the Fox River.
Both systems require annual vacuuming to remove debris clogging the spaces between pavers. Winter also presents challenges, as salt and snowplows can damage the pavers, so special care is taken when clearing these areas.
The Danz Park prairie plants. Photo credit: Wisconsin Sea Grant
Deep-rooted prairie plants are good at soaking up water — and look good while doing it — which makes them suitable for managing runoff and beautifying spaces. In addition to their permeable pavement project, NEW Water showed off their recently seeded prairie, which replaces 1.2 acres of turf grass. Jeff Smudde, director of environmental programs, explained that the planting is part of an effort to increase water infiltration across their properties, of which 46% is impervious.
“We can demonstrate that not only do we talk a good talk, but we walk the walk as well,” he said.
The aesthetic benefits of native plants were clear at Danz Park, the final stop of the tour. Parks Director Dan Ditscheit explained how the city worked with the Green Bay Conservation Corps to install 9,400 prairie plants around Century Grove, an area of 100 trees that commemorates the department’s 100th anniversary. The plants replaced an area of weed-choked wood chips.
“What’s nice about this scenario is that it doesn’t take a lot of maintenance other than coming in and weeding it every so often,” said Ditscheit. “And it reduces the amount of turf that we have to mow on an annual basis.”
The plants are arranged in artful rings and look more landscaped than a traditional prairie. Maria Otto, conservation corps coordinator, said that was intentional to challenge “the misconceptions of native plants looking weedy or wild.” The plantings have attracted attention from neighbors and wildlife alike.
“We actually have homeowners calling us, like, ‘What plants do you have at that site?’” Otto said. “We have a meadow blazing star here, and on one blazing star, there were 10 monarch butterflies.”
***
The University of Wisconsin Aquatic Sciences Center administers Wisconsin Sea Grant, the Wisconsin Water Resources Institute, and Water@UW. The center supports multidisciplinary research, education, and outreach for the protection and sustainable use of Wisconsin’s water resources. Wisconsin Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of marine resources through research, education, outreach, and technology transfer.
The post Stormwater infrastructure tour puts the ‘green’ in Green Bay first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/stormwater-infrastructure-tour-puts-the-green-in-green-bay/
A new study between researchers at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, looked at suicide rates in metropolitan areas around the United States. When looking at data from 2000 to 2018, they found a direct correlation to rises in seasonal pollen. While it is still unknown how exactly allergies work as a tipping point for some people, the research adds to a burgeoning body of work that shows this parallel exists.
Great Lakes Now
https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2025/10/new-study-links-seasonal-pollen-to-higher-suicide-risk-experts-warn/
Every fall, rain plus leaf piles can turn our streets into accidental teapots. Add water to leaves and you get a dark brew. When that wash heads into storm drains, it goes straight to our local waters where it can help fuel algae. The fix is easy and it starts in the yard. [...]
The post Please Don’t Brew “Phosphorus Tea” appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
https://fwwa.org/2025/10/28/phosphorus-tea/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=phosphorus-tea
Turning Fields into Filters New Project alert! Turning Fields into Filters Exciting news! Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance and Waushara County Land Conservation Department are partnering on our new project - Turning Fields into Filters. We're working with 3 local agriculture landowners to transform over 80 acres of marginal [...]
The post Turning Fields into Filters┃New Project Announcement appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
https://fwwa.org/2025/10/28/turningfieldsintofiltersannouncement/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=turningfieldsintofiltersannouncement
Pauline McCleary has been caring for water her whole life, long before she was raising beetles in the kiddie pools in her backyard. Raised on a farm with a spring-fed well, she learned early that water wasn’t just something that came from a tap. “If it goes in the lake, you’ll drink it later,” [...]
The post Pauline’s Butterfly Effect, with Beetles appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
https://fwwa.org/2025/10/27/paulines-butterfly-effect/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=paulines-butterfly-effect
Access to clean drinking water is essential for everyone, which is why the Alliance for the Great Lakes supports a bipartisan Ohio bill designed to eliminate all lead water lines that still exist in the state.
At a recent hearing on the bill, Meleah Geertsma, Director of Clean Water & Equity, submitted testimony that outlined how the legacy of lead pipes that run through Great Lakes communities are dangerous to our health and our economy.
Ohio currently ranks in the top 3 states in the nation for the most lead pipes serving households, with an estimated 745,000 still in use. This problem harms communities throughout Ohio, from smaller and more rural communities like Scio and Delphos, to mid-size communities like Lima and Marion, to Ohio’s larger cities. Communities like this are getting the lead out with the help of funding from Ohio EPA and H2Ohio, Ohio’s flagship program to address water quality issues including lead service line replacement. Lead poisoning from consuming contaminated water can cause irreversible brain damage in children that may take years to emerge. Exposure during adulthood increases the risk of heart disease, as well as kidney and nervous system problems.
The below testimony was submitted to the Ohio House Development Committee on HB307, the Lead Line Replacement Act, 10/1/25, on behalf of the Alliance for the Great Lakes:
Chairman Hoops, Vice Chair Lorenz, Ranking Member Abdullahi, and esteemed members of the House Development Committee, my name is Meleah Geertsma and I am submitting written testimony in support of House Bill 307, the Lead Line Replacement Act, on behalf of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, where I direct the Water Infrastructure Team. I hold a bachelor’s degree in public health, as well as a law degree and a master’s of public health. I also bring over two decades of public health, legal and policy experience to the Alliance, including working on lead in drinking water issues at the local, state, and federal levels for nearly a decade. The Alliance, in turn, is a regional organization committed to protecting the health of the Great Lakes and the people and communities that depend on them.
One of the greatest threats to the health of our region’s people from water is the legacy of lead that runs through our Great Lakes communities. This harmful history continues to negatively impact the health of children and adults today, limiting their potential and putting a drain on our economy. Now is the time for Ohio to do its part to address this legacy once and for all, along with other Great Lakes states like Michigan and Illinois that have stepped up to get the lead out.
From the outset of my work to understand lead in drinking water, I dug deep into the science and data behind the issue, learning how short we’d fallen as a country and region in adequately identifying, testing for, and controlling or removing lead, despite significant efforts. From my public health training, I already knew that there is no “safe” level of lead exposure – meaning that there are harms to health documented by the scientific research at all levels of exposure.(1) The impacts include not only profound harms to developing fetuses and young children at even low levels of exposure, but also threats to adults’ cardiac, neurological and reproductive health, such as behavioral problems, hypertension, reduced fertility, and miscarriages.(2)
I learned that lead service lines are still ubiquitous in homes and neighborhoods across our Great Lakes region, and that in many cases, systems did not have a complete picture of how many of their service lines are still made of lead and where those lines are located. In Ohio, important recent work on mapping and reporting lead lines has shed new light on this widespread problem.(3) I also learned that lead levels in residential drinking water can vary widely from sample to sample and day to day and house to house even within the same water system, and that lead service lines are consistently the greatest source of lead in household drinking water – an understanding advanced in labs based in Ohio by scientists and engineers trained at Ohio universities.(4) And I learned that on the whole, Great Lakes water systems have hovered just below the older, inadequate federal action level under the Safe Drinking Water Act, meaning that they have significant amounts of harmful lead in their water even today.(5)
I also learned that in too many places throughout our Great Lakes region, the burden of understanding the threats posed by lead in drinking water and addressing those threats falls on families and individuals. But not everyone has the resources or the information to understand let alone mitigate this threat. Nor should people have to rely solely on their own resources to protect themselves and their families against a public health emergency that arises from water infrastructure – a core public service – or worry that their children will be poisoned when visiting a friend’s or family member’s home. And water systems should not have to go it alone, but need the full support of the state to address this ongoing challenge.
With this important bill and the leadership of Representatives Jarrells and Blasdel, Ohio has the opportunity to step up now and ensure that the legacy of lead that is still with us does not continue to harm current and future generations. I invite you to join them, and thank you for your time and attention to this important infrastructure and public health matter, as well as the opportunity to submit testimony on House Bill 307.
Respectfully submitted,
Meleah Geertsma, J.D., M.P.H.
Director of Water Infrastructure, Alliance for the Great Lakes
1) See Cleveland Clinic, “Lead Poisoning,” available at https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/11312-lead-poisoning.
2) See id.; see also Ohio State University, “Lead Safety Fact Sheet,” available at https://ehs.osu.edu/kb/lead-safety-fact-sheet
3) See Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, “Lead Lines Mapping,” available at https://epa.ohio.gov/divisions-and-offices/drinking-and-ground-waters/reports-and-data/lead-lines-mapping
4) See, e.g., Lytle, et. al. (2019), “Sequential drinking water sampling as a tool for evaluating lead in Flint, Michigan,” available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135419302647
5) See, e.g., Washington University McKelvey School of Engineering, “New lead testing method could reveal higher levels in water,” available at https://engineering.washu.edu/news/2021/New-lead-testing-method-could-reveal-higher-levels-in-water.html
The post Testimony in Support of Bipartisan Bill to Eliminate Lead Water Lines in Ohio appeared first on Alliance for the Great Lakes.
News - Alliance for the Great Lakes
News - Alliance for the Great Lakes
https://greatlakes.org/2025/10/testimony-in-support-of-bipartisan-bill-to-eliminate-lead-water-lines-in-ohio/
Sea lampreys—invasive, leechlike creatures that once nearly destroyed the Great Lakes’ fishing economy—are kept in check by a small U.S.-Canadian program. Will it survive Trump’s slash-and-burn campaign? Read the full story by The New Yorker.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-lamprey-control
Because of the federal government shutdown, a trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore along Lake Michigan or to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on the Lake Superior coast may look quite different this fall. Read the full story by the Detroit Free Press.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-shutdown-parks
The state budget has cut funding for the Michigan Invasive Species Grant Program this year, but it won’t reduce money for controlling invasive sea lampreys. Read the full story by The Mining Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-michigan-invasives
The U.S. Coast Guard contends with staffing and equipment issues as it provides the types of rescues few other agencies can offer. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-coast-guard
The opening of the Erie Canal 200 years ago was touted as an incredible achievement of human ingenuity, but the lakes would never be the same again. One particularly harmful invasive species that used the Erie Canal to access the Hudson River is the round goby. Read the full story by Democrat & Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-canal-invasives
The Strawberry Creek Chinook Salmon Facility near Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, is the primary, and in some years only, site for chinook egg collection. Data collected at the facility helps biologists manage the fishery and make stocking decisions. Read the full story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-chinook-eggs
Plenty of people had already settled in the wild territory of Michigan before the opening of the Erie Canal, but numbers picked up notably thanks to the faster, smoother waterway. Read the full story by WOOD-TV – Grand Rapids, MI.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-canal-michigan
More than any other historical event, the opening of the Erie Canal, on Oct. 26, 1825, set Chicago on the path to becoming the city it is today. Read the full story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-canal-chicago
In a warm fall, the relatively warm waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron help us stay warmer overnight. This extra warmth and moisture off the Great Lakes slows down the leaf color-changing process and makes the vibrant colors last longer. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-fall-color
The recent Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam fishing derbies usually attract more than 10,000 boat anglers to Lake Erie. But big northwesterly winds and 10-foot waves roiled the lake, and most boats likely remained on their trailers throughout the weekend. Read the full story by The Plain Dealer.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251027-erie-derbies
By Karen Rivedal
Published with permission from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research
When Field Day Director David Gagnon wanted to explore making a new online learning game for young students about the Great Lakes, Gagnon’s campus colleague Anne Moser knew immediately what the game should be about — shipwrecks.
“I knew that shipwrecks really capture kids’ imaginations,” said Moser, the education coordinator and senior special librarian for Wisconsin Sea Grant, part of the Aquatic Sciences Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “The game challenges the kids to solve a puzzle, and the cool thing is that the puzzle exactly mirrors the professional practice of maritime archaeology.”
“The goal of education at Wisconsin Sea Grant is to spark a passion for the Great Lakes and to inspire the next generation of leaders, and I have seen how shipwreck stories do just that,” Moser said. “We were excited to share this with the educators and youth we work with throughout Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin Sea Grant also provided seed money for the game and helped Field Day connect with content experts such as the Wisconsin Historical Society’s maritime archaeologists. With a game prototype in hand, Field Day and Sea Grant could then approach PBS Wisconsin, which became a major funding and distribution partner.
“If it wasn’t for Sea Grant, this game wouldn’t exist,” said Jim Mathews, Field Day’s lead producer on the game, titled “Legend of the Lost Emerald.”
“Anne was interested in developing a game that would promote Great Lakes literacy and complement Wisconsin Sea Grant’s existing Great Lakes-related educational resources, including material aimed at K–12 teachers and students,” Mathews added. “One of the key ideas that emerged from this broad interest was developing a game for elementary-aged students that focused on shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.”
“Legend of the Lost Emerald” is an immersive, boldly illustrated, point-and-click adventure game that teaches while it entertains. The free, award-winning game invites students to “step into the shoes of Jules,” a maritime archaeologist character working to recover the stories behind shipwrecks inspired by real Great Lakes history. The game gives learners in grades 4–6 the experience of using the same tools, practices, and skills that maritime archaeologists use to locate and dive for shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. Young students use critical thinking and historical inquiry skills in the game, meeting Wisconsin academic standards in English language arts and social studies.
To kick off creative thinking for the game, Field Day sponsored a brainstorming event at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc that brought together Field Day game designers with maritime archaeologists from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Sea Grant staff, and Wisconsin teachers who would eventually use the game in their classrooms.
During that day’s activities, one group of teachers even learned to sing sea shanties, Field Day Creative Director Sarah Gagnon recalled, snippets of which would figure into the game’s music production. Key historical details for the game came from the historical society’s maritime preservation and archaeology program experts, especially maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen.
“All the shipwrecks in the game are fictionalized but are based on real ships that we learned about through the amazing team at the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Sea Grant,” Gagnon said, highlighting maritime archaeologists Caitlin Zant and Tori Kiefer, along with Thomsen and Moser.
To learn more about “Legend of the Lost Emerald,” watch a minute-long, animated trailer for the game, and read the blog post Field Day published when the game was released in 2022. The game also won gold in the 2022 International Serious Play Awards Program.
Wisconsin Sea Grant is a statewide program of research, education, outreach and technology transfer dedicated to the stewardship and sustainable use of the nation’s Great Lakes, the world’s largest freshwater system. Headquartered at UW–Madison, the research institute is part of a national network of 34 university-based water programs and funded primarily through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with contributions from participating states and the private sector.
Field Day is a research lab and game design studio that brings contemporary research to the public, using game data to understand how people learn. Publicly funded through grants, the team at Field Day is committed to providing games to educators for free. Using an ethos that games turn complicated topics into fun, hands-on experiences that reach people, the lab aims to better understand how people learn with games, building out theory and designing effective interventions.
Among its popular and award-winning games are “Headlines and High Waters,” designed to help students build media literacy, and “Wake: Tales From the Aqualab,” in which students take on the role of a scientist studying ocean ecosystems. Educators and students can access Field Day’s games in addition to many other free educational games in the Vault.
The Wisconsin Center for Education (WCER) at UW–Madison’s No.1 ranked public School of Education is one of the first and most productive education research centers in the world. It has assisted scholars and practitioners in developing, submitting, conducting, and sharing grant-funded education research for over 60 years.
The post WCER’s Field Day collaborates with Wisconsin Sea Grant to develop shipwrecks game first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
News Releases | Wisconsin Sea Grant
https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/wcers-field-day-collaborates-with-wisconsin-sea-grant-to-develop-shipwrecks-game/
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission has completed the construction of a 2.5-acre reef built from 20,000 tons of limestone in Lake Huron. Its purpose is to increase spawning habitat for native Great Lakes species such as walleye and whitefish. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-new-reef
In Michigan, the 1-mile segment between Petoskey and Bay Harbor on Lake Michigan’s shoreline has been closed since late 2019 due to erosion caused by record high lake levels. Reconstruction costs are estimated at $19.8 million. Read the full story by MLive.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-trail-reconstruction
A low water advisory was put in place for Western Lake Erie’s exposed shorelines after strong steady winds and gusts up to 40 mph pushed waters toward the opposite end of the lake. Read the full story by Lansing State Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-lake-erie-seiche
For the first time, the Global Oceans Conference set up shop on the shores of the Great Lakes in Chicago. The Freshwater Research Center showed off its budding status as a blue tech hub. Read the full story by the Ticker.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-global-oceans-conference
A 2.2-magnitude earthquake shook in Lake Ontario just north of Wayne County, New York, on Wednesday night at a depth of 7.9 kilometers below the surface. Read the full story by the Democrat & Chronicle.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-lake-ontario-earthquake
Boardman High School in Ohio is being awarded $4,800 to fund high school students to learn hands-on at Lake Erie’s Stone Laboratory through the “Great Lakes, Great Futures: Inspiring the Next Generation of Environmental Stewards” program. Read the full story by WFJM – Youngstown, OH.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-highschool-grant
The Lake Huron Coastal Centre’s Lake Huron Forever initiative hosted a successful One Water Gathering event in Goderich, Ontario, bringing together Canadian and U.S. partners to strengthen cross-border collaboration for the shared ecosystem. Read the full story by The Sarnia Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-one-water-gathering
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum that stands on the shore of Lake Superior holds the bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald and hosts an annual ceremony at which family members gather to remember the lost laker. Read the full story by the Duluth News Tribune.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-shipwreck-museum
Several local officials recently took a behind-the-scenes tour of the U.S. Coast Guard’s station in Marblehead, Ohio, which is the busiest station on the Great Lakes. Read the full story by the Sandusky Register.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-coast-guard
Also known as lake-effect rain, a cousin of lake-effect snow, cold air moving over the warmer Great Lakes water is generating narrow, intense bands of precipitation affecting roughly a dozen states. Read the full story by Akron Beacon Journal.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251024-gl-rain
By Joe Lorenz
Electrification and tariffs mean rural Midwest communities can cash in on their mineral resources. But how can these ventures balance local benefit to the ecological cost?
The post New interest in domestic mining comes with call for sustainability in the market first appeared on Great Lakes Echo.Great Lakes Echo
https://greatlakesecho.org/2025/10/24/new-interest-in-domestic-mining-comes-with-call-for-sustainability-in-the-market/
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.23d6a38dbb72728da2a1ecf57028c8fe872d312c.001.1.cap
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.a5b6095b37389cde1858f3e4df9ec59535b5f8a0.001.1.cap
Help Monitor Salt Pollution in the Fox-Wolf River Basin This Winter! Winter brings snow, ice, and slippery sidewalks. Sodium chloride (salt), widely used on roads, parking lots, and sidewalks to keep us safe, can also harm our streams and wildlife when overused. Fox-Wolf is partnering with the Izaak Walton League to gather more data [...]
The post Join Fox-Wolf and Help Monitor for Chlorides(Salt) appeared first on Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance.
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
https://fwwa.org/2025/10/23/join-fox-wolf-and-help-monitor-for-chloridessalt-3/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=join-fox-wolf-and-help-monitor-for-chloridessalt-3
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
Current watches, warnings, and advisories for Brown County (WIC009) WI
https://api.weather.gov/alerts/urn:oid:2.49.0.1.840.0.3f99abd61b6c15789ae7025388627e7132fd4bec.001.1.cap
The U.S. Geological Survey is planning to lay off 79% of the workforce of the Great Lakes Science Center that’s headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as part of a reduction in force across the U.S. Department of the Interior. Read the full story by The Detroit News.
Great Lakes Commission
https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20251022-glsc-layoffs
