Friday, August 25, 2006

Blog in the news . . . AGAIN!

The Spring issue of Twine Line, Ohio Sea Grant's quarterly newsletter on research and events around Lake Erie has a special feature in it about the Stone Lab blogs! Written by yours truly, you can access "Frogs and Blogs" right here!

There's also an excerpt in the magazine from Amy's blog, that's definitely worth checking out. We also just got news from onCampus, the alumni newsletter that there will be a mini-feature in there about the blogs as well! I'll post that when we get it.

Keep an eye out for an article on Justin's REU experience at the lab in the next issue of Twine Line.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Winding Down


Well, it's the last week of the term. We're busy getting our labels made for our collections and cramming more scientific names into our heads. I feel like I am never making enough flash cards!

To add to Daniella's post about tips, I'm going to add another of my own:

If you're in a class that has anything to do with water (which is all of them I think), bring a disposable underwater camera and print and scan them to your blog when you get home. That way, you won't be like me and filing a claim on your poor drowned digital camera. Mine got sucker punched by Lake Erie. Not a good thing when you've become addicted to taking pictures of EVERYTHING! On a positive note, maybe I can get an even better, waterproof one for next year? We shall see!

See you in a week!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

More Tips


Tip #1: I decided to take the Miller Ferry because I’d heard that it was a lot less expensive. I guess the Jet Express is a little bit nicer, and definitely faster, but it costs twice as much and you have to pay for parking. By taking the Miller Ferry, you pay less money for the ticket, and the parking is free! The only disadvantage is that you dock further from the lab, but that’s nothing a cab ride can’t fix.

To find out what else was helpful on my trip, check out my blog!

Monday, August 07, 2006


The sunset off of Gibraltar Island can be beautiful, like the sunset Thursday night. Rattlesnake Island is in the background.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Blog's in the news

Thought this was pretty interesting (and of course I wrote it)! The article is also on our homepage (www.ohioseagrant.osu.edu) and appeared in the Toledo Blade last month. Just a little incentive for you bloggers to keep up the good work!

I've also been working on an article that will appear in the next issue of Twine Line, the magazine that we run on research and news around the Great Lakes area. The magazine can also be acessed from our home page. Enjoy!

Stone Laboratory Students Offer Personal Accounts of Coursework Via Blogs

Students and educators interested in Ohio State University's Lake Erie campus at Stone Laboratory can now view first-hand accounts of students' experiences on line. Lauren Makeyenko of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is the first of many Stone Lab students who has been busy blogging this past week.

"Everyone was able to participate in the water sampling this morning. Techniques used were the Rosette Sampler (conductivity, temperature, chlorophyll, and dissolved oxygen), Box Core Sampler, Ponar Grab, and Plankton Net," writes Lauren on the first day of her blog."

Shipboard and Shoreline Science on Lake Erie is Lauren's daily journal of her experiences while taking the course Natural Resources 611: Great Lakes Education Workshop. Throughout her blog, Lauren quotes her classmates, uploads pictures of her activities, and documents her experience aboard the U.S. EPA's R/V Lake Guardian.

"Lauren Makeyenko did a great job of capturing not only what was happening with the science but also with the environments we encountered," says Dr. Rosanne Fortner, director of COSEE Great Lakes. "The storms, the mayflies and the canoes all contributed to that experiential aspect that is the most memorable way to learn. I think you can see from the photos how involved and enthusiastic the participants were."

As part of a new Ohio Sea Grant Communications project, Lauren's blog is just one of many student blogs now available on the web. One student from each of the 30 science courses offered at Stone Laboratory has been selected to write a detailed account of their experiences while at the Lab this summer. Courses with blogs now include Sports Fishing, Geology, and Marine and Aquatic Education.

These blogs will serve as a visual and written record of student experiences to use in the following years for promotion. Future students will be able to click and see what they would be doing in class from another student's perspective. From important items to bring to Lake Erie, to how to catch bigger walleye, anyone can see that these blogs are meant to prepare and intrigue future students.

To see Lauren's blog about her experience with COSEE Great Lakes' Lake Guardian course, visit www.coseegreatlakes.blogspot.com. To read about other students' adventures while at Stone Laboratory, visit the Stone Lab Students blog at www.stonelaboratory.blogspot.com.

Stone Laboratory is Ohio State University's Island Campus on Lake Erieand the research facility for the Ohio Sea Grant College Program. Teachers, high school students, and college students take college credit courses at Stone Lab, the nation's oldest freshwater biological field station, every year. More than 5,500 students grades 4 through adults take aquatic science workshops/fieldtrips at Stone Lab annually.