August 3 – Cindy gave us all a reprieve this morning. We boarded the van at 0830 for the Aquarium instead of 0800.

We again started with a plan for the day and concept mapping

followed by an introduction of Dr. Lucinda Johnson of the Natural Resources Research Institute. Participants opened the session with questions for Lucinda on the certainties and uncertainties of climate change.

She gave us an excellent and well-illustrated presentation on the complexities of climate change, with understandable examples that teachers can use with elementary students. Lucinda concluded her remarks with a series of slides specifically on the potential impacts of changing climate to the Great Lakes.

Following yet another imaginative box lunch prepared by the UMD caterers, Cindy put on her croupier’s hat and orchestrated a competitive round of the watershed game, with candy as the currency.

Then Matt TenEyck, UW-Superior, clearly connected our Great Lakes to the oceans of the world with an explanation of invasive species, shipping and ballast water.

At 2:30 pm (can that really be right) we concluded the formal portion of the day, and sent the participants off to prepare for group presentations tomorrow.

They’ve been so busy that the blog fodder I’ve received has been sparse, so instead I offer the following:

Our Duluth heat wave seems to have finally broken, but not before some bizarre occurrences. In fact, Bruce Munson reported that it was so hot earlier this week that he had seen a squirrel in the backyard dipping its nuts in ice.

And while participants worked late into the night preparing for Friday, our fearless leaders looked for direction…