— Filed by Brandon Kyc, WENY / WETM

Horseheads High School science teacher Christy Pratt was among the 15 teachers selected for a Lake Ontario Shipboard Science Workshop this summer led by New York Sea Grant aboard the U.S. EPA Research Vessel Lake Guardian.

Horseheads, NY, June 14, 2023 — A  Horseheads High School teacher is one of 15 educators selected to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the 2023 Great Lakes Shipboard Science Workshop.

Christy Pratt, a science teacher for 9-12th grade students at Horseheads High School, will join 14 other educators from five Great Lake states in the workshop designed to guide the teachers in developing lesson plans and curricula to take back to the classroom and inspire students all while sailing Lake Ontario aboard an Environmental Protection Agency research vessel.

Numerous activities will be done over the course of the multi-day journey from July 6-12, hosted by the New York Sea Grant, aboard the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office Research Vessel Lake Guardian.

The Lake Guardian will leave from Rochester and make stops in Youngstown, NY, and Oswego, NY.

Pratt will participate in water sampling and analyze the samples aboard the ship’s laboratories while learning different teaching strategies from scientists from Cornell University, Great Lakes Research Consortium, U.S. EPA GLNPO, and many more aboard the ship.

“This one-of-a-kind workshop is a unique opportunity to learn techniques, tips, and strategies that will help my students to feel more comfortable in constructing science-based presentations and computational simulations that illustrate the relationships of the management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, biodiversity, and the impact of human activity,” Pratt said.

Seven teachers from across New York will be learning aboard the vessel, with the others coming from Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

“This unique hands-on learning experience increases teachers’ understanding of the Great Lakes’ unparalleled value and fosters creation of personalized teaching resources to spark student interest in the world’s largest surface freshwater system,” said Nate Drag, NYSG Great Lakes Literacy Specialist.

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For more on the 2023 Shipboard Science Workshop, including insights from the educators onboard, see NYSG's pre-workshop press release, "Educators to Learn from Scientists and NY Sea Grant Aboard Ship on Lake Ontario". There's also NYSG's post-media analysis news item, "On YouTube, On Air: Teachers Learn Aboard the Lake Guardian".

Additional video and audio clips related to this workshop can be found below ... 




More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.