— Filed by Haillie Higgins, WHEC News10 NBC

Rochester, NY, July 6, 2023 — Every five years, the Lake Guardian comes to Lake Ontario. The largest research vessel in the great lakes, the roughly 40-person craft spends a year in each Great Lake, bringing researchers, scientists, and local teachers aboard.

“I’m very grateful to have the chance and I’m really excited about working with my students come September to share what I’ve learned,” fourth grade teacher Tucker Ruderman said.

Ruderman teaches at the World of Inquiry School No. 58 in Rochester. While he doesn’t specialize in science, he said he was grateful to have such an amazing opportunity.

He and science teacher Tara Spitzer-List are representing Rochester on this trip. They are joining 13 other teachers from Great Lake states for a week of learning out on the water.

“Rochester is right here on the lake. So many students know the beach or the lake, but they really are not aware of the importance of it or the resource that we have and all the science that’s going on,” Spitzer-List said.

The teachers have been brought aboard thanks to the federal-collegiate partnership — the New York Sea Grant. The Grant funds the experience for all the Great Lakes, allowing local educators to get hands on experience.

The vessel is owned by the Department of Environmental Conservation, and conducts research on water quality, organisms in the lake, and impacts on human health.

“For the next week we’re going to kind of be jumping in to it and learning as we go,” Ruderman said.

Staff with New York Sea Grant said that the teachers learn to do it all themselves, and can fully participate in each of the three research projects by the end of the five days.

Spitzer-List is a science teacher for the district, and currently works for the virtual academy, providing students in several schools access to science-related courses.

“So much of the science that we study in school and that we teach is so abstract and removed so I’m hoping that this can make it more engaging and relevant,” Spitzer-List said.

The Guardian has been going to each of the Great Lakes and bringing educators aboard since 1991.

“As teachers, what we really want to do is ignite students curiosity and their excitement about what learning looks like in the real world. So to have the chance to learn alongside scientists, and kind of see the way science ideas are actually practiced, is pretty amazing,” Ruderman said.

The ship will dock back in Charlotte on Tuesday afternoon, and the experience will finish with a presentation on Wednesday. After that, the Lake Guardian will pop over to the next pond, returning to Rochester in five more years.

WHEC-TV is a television station in Rochester, NY, affiliated with NBC.

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.