Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/author/khirai/page/3/)
As the Steelers take on the Packers in Super Bowl XLV, university football recently made touchdowns in another area–waste reduction at home games. How much difference can one home football game make? Apparently more than 500,000 pounds of waste worth. That’s what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is reporting in results of their 2010 WasteWise Program Game Day Challenge. The program pits football teams against each other in more ways than one.
It’s like adopting a highway — Great Lakes style. Instead of cleaning up the turnpike, 10,000 residents in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin adopted beaches and collected 31,295 pounds of litter in 2010 as part of the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Adopt-a-Beach program. Beach adopters collect litter on the shoreline, conduct water quality tests and keep records that tell the alliance about beach health, possible pollution sources and other features. The alliance program was launched in 2003, though alliance volunteers have participated in the International Coastal Cleanup since 1991, said Jamie Cross, Adopt-a-Beach program manager. Results are entered into an online database.
A service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture mapped the distributions of plant species in North America in addition to other plant characteristics in an online database.
Two organizations recently launched an energy conservation program to show how community efforts can lessen climate change in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The Superior Watershed Partnership and Land Trust and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore staff hope to prevent 165,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere and save Alger County residents about 1.7 million kilowatt hours. They plan to do that through a $350,000 Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant that will fund free home energy assessments, personalized home energy plans, free installation of products like energy-efficient light bulbs and coupons toward products residents can find at their local hardware stores. The team is targeting the national lakeshore’s two Michigan gateway communities, Munising and Grand Marais, but all Alger County residents are eligible. The goal is to reach community-wide adoption of these energy-saving measures by visiting 1,500 homes.
Geological Society of America coordinates near Sulphur, Ind. take outdoor enthusiasts to the edge of a fossil bed full of ancient inland sea inhabitants. The society transformed the modern-day treasure hunt into an educational outdoor lesson plan. The idea is based on the popularity of geocaching–individuals hide trinkets and treasures and then disclose the Global Positioning System coordinates to others who hunt them down. Rather than caching treasure, EarthCachers collect earth science information about the sites they visit.
Ice volcanoes form when wind-driven waves splash against the edge of ice shelves building out from a lake’s shoreline. Irregular ice forms at the edge, encouraging approaching waves to splash and spatter more. Once the ice has stretched out into the lake, waves beneath the ice sheet force water up into the cracks and volcanoes previously formed. This water makes cones larger and sometimes results an eruption of water from the cone like a volcano. The ice structures range from less than 3 feet to more than 24 feet tall, according to Michigan Technological University.
The Wisconsin Coastal Guide maps lighthouses, shipwrecks, parks, beaches and other attractions along the state’s Lake Michigan and Lake Superior shorelines, part of the Great Lakes Circle Tour.
Best Buy and Ford announced a partnership to offer electric car owners home charging stations two weeks ago. But if you’re not in the market for Ford’s 2012 Focus Electric, you can still shop for something lighter at Best Buy. In mid-2009, the electronics retailer made room for something less couch-potato and more “moving.”
Best Buy chucked the electronic shelving for some larger interior décor on the main floor–electric scooters, bikes and even a motorcycle. The electric vehicles appeared in stores in seven states, two in the Great Lakes region. Four stores in Illinois and five in New York now carry electric vehicles.
Winter winds over New Year’s Eve brought a “whiff” of whale burps, much to the curiosity of beachcombers. But the stench was surprisingly absent. The two whale burps were found by Duluth, Minn. resident Glenn Maxham’s son on Lake Superior’s beach over the holiday, according to Minnesota Sea Grant. Whale burps, also known as surf balls, form when nearshore shallows weave together a messy, entwined mix of plastic strands, feathers, pine needles, seaweed, shell pieces and other odds and ends.
Flowering plants top a Michigan list of extremely rare species groups. Threats are as diverse as climate change and off-road vehicles.