Contact: 

Nate Drag, NYSG Great Lakes Literacy Specialist, E: nwd4@cornell.edu, P: 716-645-3610 

Watertown, NY, May 10, 2023 — New York Sea Grant has many ways to learn about the Great Lakes.

Great Lakes Literary specialist Nate Drag talked about some of them. Watch the video for his interview on 7 News This Morning.

Drag works with teachers, educators, and students to integrate Great Lakes lessons and activities into their classes and programs. His goal is to raise literacy about the Great Lakes.

He also talked about how 15 teachers from across the Great Lakes will have the opportunity to spend a week on Lake Ontario aboard an EPA research vessel. They’ll work with EPA scientists doing water quality monitoring, taking plankton samples, and looking at algae.

He also spoke about a slew of educational materials at nyseagrant.org/gleee. There’s curricula and kits about plastic pollution, lake sturgeon, the Underground Railroad, Great Lakes literacy activities, and invasive species.

You can email nwd4@cornell.edu or call 716-645-3610 to learn more.

Since April 2006, NYSG specialists have been bringing Sea Grant's "message" to the morning masses at WWNY TV 7, a Watertown-based CBS-affiliate, during one of the highest rated TV blocks in the "wake-up hours," the 6:30-7 am stretch.

Sea Grant's 'five minutes of fame' - which potentially reaches around 10,000 viewers in New York's Jefferson and Northern Oswego Counties - has featured topics over the years such as boating safety, aquatic invasive species, diving in search of sunken wrecks, the dune and Salmon River stewards program, shoreline land issues, tourism, and marine safety.


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 in 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.