— Filed by Eileen Buckley, WKBW

“Just excited to do like real world science”

North Tonawanda, NY, June 21, 2023 — A North Tonawanda High School teacher is about to embark on a Great Lakes journey.

“Just excited to do like real-world science,” declared Melissa Elliott, teacher, North Tonawanda High School.


Melissa Elliott, teacher, North Tonawanda High School. Credit: WKBW

Elliott was selected nationally among 15 other teachers from Great Lakes states to participate in the Federal EPA’s research vessel on Lake Ontario for a workshop on board the Lake Guardian ship.

The biology teacher is about to test out her ‘sea legs’ as she will step on board the ship to join the Shipboard Science Workshop.

“I don't really have a lot of experience on the water, so I’m kind of just going with an open mind, getting some seasickness medicine and I’m just grateful to get on the ship,” remarked Elliott. “I was really excited and also nervous at the same time.”


Lake Guardian ship. Credit: EPA

Elliott will be on the ship from July 6 through July 12. Teachers are selected through a collaboration between the New York Sea Grant and EPA as part of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

“It’s everything from being on the ship, out on the lake in the middle of the night, and just seeing stars at that moment, sticking with them to being real scientists and being in the lab and working with academic researchers,” explained Nate Drag, Great Lakes Literacy Specialist, New York Sea Grant.

Drag says Elliott's application really stood out.


Nate Drag, New York Sea Grant & Melissa Elliott. Credit: WKBW

“And reading through Melissa's application. There was so much passion and excitement. We want to foster that support with a really cool experience like this and she'll bring it back to her students,” noted Drag.

“I think it's really because North Tonawanda is situated between the two Great Lakes on the Niagara River, so I think that a lot of people are really excited to get to know through my experience, and for me to bring that information back here,” Elliott reflected.

The unique hands-on experience aboard the ship will increase the teachers' knowledge of the Great Lakes so they can bring it back to their classrooms.


Research work conducted on the ship. Credit: WKBW

“I want to create more — projects that have to do directly with the lake so that we can do day-to-day stuff learning about it,” Elliott replied. “I don't have a lot of knowledge about the Great Lakes, so I was looking for opportunities to learn more, and to connect to my students, and myself and friends and family to the Great Lakes and I’m just super grateful for this opportunity to learn and be able to experience real-life science.”

While on board, Elliott will be conducting water sampling along Lake Ontario and working in the ship's laboratories.

“When these teachers are right there in the lab on the deck, operating this huge equipment wearing hard hats and steel-toed boots and living that real scientists experience on it change it can change their career,” Drag commented.


Melissa Elliott, North Tonawanda teacher. Credit: WKBW

“I just have a fascination with everything that is alive, so I think that I’ve always just been really curious about living organisms, microscopic organisms, just always wanting to learn more about them,” responded Elliott.

Drag noted that when they have a teacher who is excited about the local resource of the Great Lakes, it makes a big difference in this project.

“There's no other place in the world that has this much water in this region. The Great Lakes is 20% of the world's freshwater, so to find a teacher that wants to dig in and is excited about the tiniest of all organisms because we're going to be looking at Zooplankton, Phytoplankton, Benthic organisms, and the stuff down in the muck on the bottom of Lake 100 feet down, so we need to find a teacher that wants to get their hands dirty and get into that,” Drag stated.

WKBW 7 is a television station in Buffalo, NY, affiliated with an ABC affiliate

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.