NOAA Education Council hears from Lake Superior Reserve Rivers2Lake Education program
Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve education coordinator Deanna Erickson was invited to present research and results from the Rivers2Lake Education program based in Superior to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Education Council on August 15. The NOAA Education Council is the forum in which representatives from NOAA’s major education programs coordinate educational activities across the nation’s coasts.
“It is an honor to present the centerpiece of our educational programming to such an influential group, and to share our efforts along Lake Superior with them.” said Erickson.
The invitation came in response to a peer-reviewed article recently published in the Journal of Environmental Education by Julie Ernst at the University of Minnesota Duluth and Erickson. Through evaluation of the Rivers2Lake Education Program, the researchers found that regular support of a mentor helps teachers implement environmental education (EE) more confidently.
Rivers2Lake integrates the Lake Superior watershed into education as a foundation for engaging place-based learning, Great Lakes literacy, stewardship, and watershed restoration. The program helps to network teachers with biologists, research managers, tribal agencies, and environmental educators in an effort to bring engaging learning to students. Eighty-six teacher alumni of the program represent Ashland, Bayfield, Northwestern, South Shore, and Superior school districts in Wisconsin, and Carlton and Cloquet, Duluth, and Floodwood school districts in Minnesota as well as the Fond du Lac Ojibwe school. Funding is provided through grants from the NOAA Bay Watershed Education Training Program and Wisconsin Sea Grant.
The Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve, jointly operated by UW Extension and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and based at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, is a federal reserve encompassing over 16,000 acres along the St. Louis River freshwater estuary. More information about the Rivers2Lake education program is available at www.rivers2lake.org.
