water

Ice, ice, very nice

Many moons ago, as a wet-behind-the-ears grad student, I spent a winter living and working at CFAES’s Stone Laboratory at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. The winter was a good one for cold, snow, and ice, the lake freezing over in late December, the ice being broken up once by a storm, but then locking in and staying that way, solid, thick, and getting thicker, right into March. My roommate would drive his van on the lake, hauling his ice fishing gear. Guys from Canada’s Pelee Island would zip to Put-in-Bay by snowmobile, a distance of about 5 miles. Dozens of ice fishing shanties, a semi-permanent village, dotted a part of the lake where I’d seen a lone Lyman boat cruising just two months before, a mildish day in early December, the water black, eerily calm, but still then definitely liquid.

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How to teach about aquaponics, learn about hydroponics

If you’re an educator, and you’re interested in a hands-on way to teach your students about science and producing food, consider attending “Aquaponics in the Classroom: Teaching Real-World Skills Through Conservation,” a session at next month’s CFAES-sponsored Farm Science Review trade show. The session runs from 11-11:30 a.m. on the second day of the Review, Wednesday, Sept. 19, in the Gwynne Conservation Area. The session is free with paid admission to the Review.

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Algal bloom conference in Toledo

Ohio State’s Ohio Sea Grant program hosts the third annual Understanding Algal Blooms: State of the Science Conference — featuring scientists’ latest findings about algal blooms, their causes and the best ways to prevent them — on Sept. 13 in Toledo. Experts from CFAES will be among the dozen or so speakers. Continue reading Algal bloom conference in Toledo →

March 22: World Water Day event at Ohio State

Ohio State is recognizing World Water Day with a Water Awareness event from noon to 3 p.m. this Thursday, March 22, in Great Hall Meeting Room #2 in the Ohio Union, 1739 N. High St. on the Columbus campus. Some 16 programs from Ohio State and the Columbus area will share displays on their efforts to protect water.

Some of those programs are part of or have partners from CFAES. They include Ohio Sea Grant, the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, the InFACT Discovery Theme, the Sustainable and Resilient Economy Program, the Global Water Institute, and the TerrAqua student organization.

Admission is free and open to the public. Get details.

See stunning aerial photos of Lake Erie algal blooms

NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory has posted some stunning aerial photos, taken Sept. 20, of a harmful algal bloom in western Lake Erie. You can see more, too, from Sept. 14 (the fifth one down, among many, may smack your gob) and Aug. 14.

How to predict if Lake Erie’s algal blooms are toxic

A new federally funded study, involving Ohio State’s Ohio Sea Grant program and Stone Laboratory and led by the lab’s research coordinator, Justin Chaffin, aims to predict the toxicity of Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms, according to a story last week in the Sandusky Register. (Photo: 2015 western Lake Erie algal bloom, Jill Bartolotta, Ohio Sea Grant, via Flickr.)