— Filed by Isabella Colello, WWTI TV / ABC50 NOW

Belleville, NY, June 28, 2023 — A once-in-a-lifetime boat ride.

Barbara Bibbins teaches 8th grade and Regents science at the Belleville-Henderson Central School District, and although the school year is over, lessons aren’t over yet.

Bibbins was chosen for the 2023 Lake Ontario Shipboard Science Workshop aboard the U.S. EPA Great Lakes National Program Office Research Vessel Lake Guardian.

This is a professional development workshop hosted by New York Sea Grant on Lake Ontario. Bibbins was one of only 15 teachers chosen to work aboard the vessel.

“So for me personally, I just love to learn,” Bibbins shared. “So this is just an opportunity for me to get back into the academic part of research and that type of thing.”

The team will board the ship on July 6 and work until July 12. During the week, they will work alongside scientists to conduct research on cyanobacteria, macro invertebrates, benthic organisms and water quality.

Teachers will also be guided through new lesson planning. For Bibbins, this is specifically important for her students at Belleville-Henderson is less than five miles from Lake Ontario.

“We live here, so they’re living very close to or on the Lake,” she expressed. “They’re going to see these organisms that we’re talking about. They may be affected by Harmful Algal Blooms or that kind of thing.”

She said she hopes that her experience will help her to further inspire her students in the years to come.

“Just get the kids connected so that they can then maybe take that out as they get older and get curious about the world around them,” Bibbins stated.

WWTI is a television station in Watertown, NY, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. 

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.