From the Traverse City Record Eagle -
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BY SARAH ELMS selms@record-eagle.com | Posted: Monday, August 11, 2014 6:00 am
TRAVERSE CITY — The Inland Seas Education Association’s new lead scientist and director of education is working to update the schooner’s educational programs and strengthen relationships with other scientists and conservation experts.
Jeanie Williams, a Cadillac native, left her adjunct instructor position at Vermont Community College to move back to her home state and join the Inland Seas, a nonprofit organization that aims to protect the Great Lakes through education.
She said the position appealed to her because it combines scientific research and teaching.
“My degree is biology, and I fell into education and have never left,” Williams said.
Williams wants to start revamping the schooner’s educational opportunities once the busy summer season is over.
“We’ve been doing basically the same program for about 25 years, and it’s time for a change,” she said.
She wants to differentiate educational opportunities for the spring and fall seasons, as well as add more programs geared toward teens and young adults.
“High school and college groups can really utilize the research aspects of what we do,” Williams said. “There are really complex stories that we can engage our high school students in that would be harder to do with the younger students.”
Her goal is to survey the folks who participate in Inland Seas
programming and hear their suggestions before making changes.
“We’re trying to complement what teachers are doing in their schools, so we’re very interested in learning from teachers what they would like to see in their programming,” she said.
Williams also hopes to collaborate more with other scientists and collect data to establish a baseline for water quality and aquatic life in Lake Michigan.
Her team will work on shoreline monitoring projects, track the invasive goby fish population, research native species trends and soon will collect data on microplastics in the Grand Traverse Bay. Microplastics are plastic pieces smaller than five millimeters that pollute the water, a topic Williams said is new for Great Lakes researchers.
“We’re trying to expand our work in that way so that we’re collecting data that can be used by the scientific community,” she said.
Williams ultimately wants to see people connect their experiences with Inland Seas and on the water to everyday life.
“Science is really fun,” she said. “It’s not about memorization. It’s about experience. It’s about creativity. It’s about discovering.”
