The 2012 Canon Envirothon competition is underway, and Great Lakes states are looking for participants.
Envirothon teams compete in outdoor challenges that test their understanding of soils, land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife and current environmental issues. Students may also do volunteer projects and give presentations about their experiences.
States have their own Envirothon programs. Check them out for more details on signing up.

Nestled in the northwest corner of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, the Grand Traverse Bay has had declining native fish populations for decades. And all-too-common perpetrators are largely to blame – aquatic invaders.
But a new federal and state partnership seeks to bolster the popular bay’s native fish populations. Officials will use traps and seismic guns to clear rusty crayfish and round gobies off of spawning reefs, where they hang out and eat fish eggs.
“We are trying to give the native species a helping hand,” Lindsay Chadderton said in a prepared statement. Chadderton …

Tim Campbell at the Wisconsin Sea Grant has found a way to bring the Great Lakes to your holiday celebrations. Sit around the fireplace and sing The Twelve Days of Aquatic Invasive Species Christmas with all your lake-lovin’ friends and family.
 
On the twelfth day of Christmas, a freighter sent to me
Twelve quaggas clogging
‘Leven gobies gobbling
Ten alewives croaking
Nine eggs in resting
Eight shrimp a’swarming
Seven carp and counting
Six lamprey leaping
Five boat-wash stations!
Four perch on ice
Three clean boat steps
Two red swamp crayfish
And a carp barrier in the city!
Check out the full version for …

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has removed gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region from the federal endangered species list.
The western Great Lakes region includes Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
The delisting takes effect Jan. 27. State departments will manage wolves after the delisting. You can view the Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota wolf management plans here:
State wolf management plans
The core population of the region’s gray wolves live in the northern parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. According to the …

Take a break from the eggnog, fuzzy sweaters and family parties to take part in the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, a citizen science program that’s been running each winter since 1900.
From Dec. 14 until Jan. 5, help out by counting birds in specified areas and submitting the data to the Audubon Society. The information helps scientists study the long-term health of North American birds.
The count goes beyond monitoring bird health. In the 1980s, the Christmas Bird Count data showed a decline in wintering populations of american black duck, …

Next time you’re about to scowl at a wasp, think again.
Researchers at the University of Michigan found that paper wasps, Polistes fuscatus, learn each other’s faces the way humans do. The study was published in Science.
Researchers showed the smart little buggers pictures of other paper wasps, caterpillars, shapes and computer-altered pictures. They set up a maze that required the wasps to choose the right image  to find a pathway  through it.
The maze travelers learned the faces of the other paper wasps fastest, even though researchers thought the shapes would be …

America’s Top Power Plant Toxic Air Polluters, released by the Environmental Integrity Project, contains data on toxic power plant emissions and puts Great Lakes states right at the top.
Some highlights:

Six of the top 10 arsenic emitting power plants are in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania power plants emit 28 percent of the nation’s arsenic air pollution from power plants
Two Consumers Energy plants in Michigan emit 86 percent of the state’s total chromium air pollution from power plants
The Miami Fort Generating Station in Ohio is the nation’s top polluter of hydrochloric acid among power plants

The Discovery Channel’s Drain the Great Lakes dives below the surface of the Great Lakes. See the underwater topography of each lake and learn about shipwrecks, submerged waterfalls, craters and invasive species.
The lakes hold almost 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater … but what if the water was gone? The program explores some of the man-made and natural wonders underneath the waters, and exposes the geographic uniqueness of the giant water bowls that surround us.
Using some cool computer imagery, the Discovery folks take viewers on a pretty fantastic voyage …

Every year American Rivers lists America’s Most Endangered Rivers, and every year the Chicago River is one of them.
Well, that may change in 2012.
American Rivers posts periodic updates about the dubious rivers they shame every spring, and the river advocacy group now says the Windy City’s twisting stream of sewage is cleaning up its image – and water.
For years the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District has spewed bacteria-filled sewage into the river without disinfecting it by using ultraviolet light, which kills the germs. The EPA and environmental groups pushed the city for …

Martin Reinhardt, member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and teacher at Northern Michigan University, is planning a Decolonizing Diet Project, where he and a group will only eat food that was available 300 years ago in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The project officially starts spring 2012, but Reinhardt is already collecting wild foods and developing recipes. He’s made wild rice milk and pectin, gathered cranberries, leeks and ferns and been hunting to stock his kitchen.
Reinhardt has already tried out the decolonized diet with a week of eating indigenous …