Three hundred and fifty students in grades 9-12 in fourteen classes from six schools in Houghton, Keweenaw, Gogebic and Ontonagon Counties will pour into Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center for the 8th Annual Lake Superior Water Festival. Students from the following high schools will be participating:  Calumet, L.L. Wright (Ironwood), Horizons (Mohawk), Lake Linden-Hubbell, Watersmeet, and Ewen-Trout Creek.

Fourteen different sessions will be offered throughout the day, presented by Michigan Tech scientists, graduate students, and staff, as well as Copper Harbor Trails, U.S. Coast Guard, Ottawa National Forest, and Isle Royale National Park.

The Water Festival provides an opportunity for students to learn about and celebrate our most precious natural resource—the Great Lakes! A wide variety of topics from science and engineering to land and water stewardship will be presented.  Students attend four 35-minute activities. Some of the topics to be presented include, Leave No Trace Outdoors, cleaning wastewater, careers with the U.S. Coast Guard, emerging contaminants and water quality, wetlands ecology, invasive species, stream dynamics, and more.

The 2019 Water Festival is made possible with funding from the Keweenaw Community Foundation Youth Advisory Council, Western UP MiSTEM Network, Great Lakes Fishery Trust, Wege Foundation, MTU Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and the Great Lakes Research Center.

All-Day
1. Leave No Trace
Presenter: Nathan Miller, Copper Harbor Trails Club
2. U.S. Coast Guard Water Safety and Careers
Presenters: US Coast Guard officers
3. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lake Superior
Presenter: Nicholas Pond, Isle Royale National Park
4. Wonderful Wetlands
Presenter: Sean Westly, Ecologist and PhD candidate, School of Forest Resources and Environmental
5. River Flows and Low Impact Development
Presenter: Dr. Brian Barkdoll, MTU Department Civil and Environmental Engineering

AFTERNOON ONLY
6. Water Cycles and Human Impacts
Presenter:  Joe Panci, Conservation Education Coordinator, Ottawa National Forest
7. Pollution Dilution and Emerging Contaminants
Presenter: Dr. Daisuke Minakata and Ryan Kibler, Benjamin Barrios Cerda, and Alex Waypa, graduate students, Civil and Environmental Engineering
8. How Do Streams Works? What Causes Floods?
Presenter: Casey Huckins, Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences
9. From Drain to Drinking Water
Presenter: Joan Chadde, Director, Center for Science and Environmental Outreach