UMD Scientists Invite Area Students to Visit Research Vessel

DULUTH, Minn. —

Docked right next to the Great Lakes Aquarium sits the Blue Heron in all her glory.

Of all the tools at the disposal of researchers at UMD’s Large Lakes Observatory, no doubt the Heron is their biggest, and one of the most important.

“We couldn’t do the work we do today without the Blue Heron,” said Research Superintendent Doug Ricketts. “You need to actually have something bigger than your pontoon boat that you take out on your local lake.  You need to have something bigger to do good work out there.”

But LLO Director Bob Sterner says he and his team of scientists love their ship – and love showing her off to the community – for a number of reasons.

“It’s also a charismatic boat,” Dr. Sterner said.  “I meet many people around town, and when I saw ‘Large Lakes Observatory’ [they’re like] ‘Oh! The Blue Heron!’ So they’ve seen us go in and out.”

And today the Blue Heron has opened her deck to dozens of students from around the Northland, not just for a tour, but to connect with the scientists that are out there year in and year out researching the world’s large lakes.

“It connects us with the community around us,” Dr. Sterner said.  “We get to listen to what’s on people’s minds, and I like to think we are able to also show people what we’re doing and what they’re paying for in supporting basic science.”

One of the teachers guiding his students around the LLO’s Science on Deck program is Moose Lake life science teacher Greg Eliason.

Elisason said he jumped at the chance to bring his students here.

“It allows us to connect all those dots on a local level, on a hands-on level, rather than something that’s in the distance,” he said.  “Lake Superior is just a tremendous resource.”

When we met him, Eliason was guiding his students from a station where they met with members from the Sea Grant talking about their work, to a station with a scientist showing off an autonomous glider.

The gliders are self-guiding robots that swim on their own through the lake to collect data.

“Getting out and then meeting research scientists, people that are working in the field, people that are working and giving presentations are real-life people that do this for a living,” Eliason said.

The LLO has used the Blue Heron for their research for 19 years.

During the tour, students get a firsthand look at the kind of research they’ve been doing on the lake in that time.

“We are privileged to be a group of scientists who are curious about how these places work,” Dr. Sterner said, enthusiastically.

It’s an opportunity that might just convince them that science is a career for them one day.

This is the first of a series of tours that the LLO calls “Science on Deck.”

They have a few more of these, open to the public, scheduled through the rest of the summer.