Great Lakes Education

People need to know about the Great Lakes

 

In Touch with the World through the www

 

People who live around the Great Lakes often take them for granted.  I wrote The Dynamic Great Lakes, to give people enough information to make intelligent choices in their every day lives about the world’s greatest freshwater system.  The Dynamic Great Lakes is a book about their ecology and the mistakes people have made when altering the landscape by making locks for shipping, destroying wetlands or introducing new species both intentionally and unintentionally.  It was my aim in writing this book to make people appreciate these lakes and understand what they might do for their betterment.

 

Most people do not understand the significance of the Great Lakes.  They are twenty per cent of the world’s fresh surface water and need to be protected.  These lakes’ freshwater will be hotly contested as more and more industries and people in arid parts of the world would like to exploit them. It is indeed happening now.   Some large freshwater lakes in the world have been destroyed—drawn down to nothing through a lack of understanding.

 

Bottling plants have their eyes on the Great Lakes.  Bottling water and shipping it out of the watershed will destroy the integrity of the lakes and their unique ecosystems.  People in the Great Lakes watershed argue that the water belongs to the commons and should not be sold for private profit.  There are many more issues the book addresses: directional drilling for oil, nuclear power plants, exotic species, wetlands, sand dunes and pollution from industries and municipalities. 

 

  

I wrote the book and created this website so that people might find the information they need about the Great Lakes. It gives the basics and yet limnologists have told me they learned things about the Great Lakes they did not know, while general readers have told me that they never appreciated the Great Lakes until they read my book.  Another motive in writing the book was to raise consciousness about the greatest freshwater system on the surface of Earth and the need to protect what we have.  Armed with such knowledge, people are in a good position to make good decisions about the lakes.

 

One of the first educational websites and newsletters that featured The Dynamic Great Lakes website was www.Spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk  in the U.K.  I have had responses from around the globe: Germany, France, USSR, Scandinavia, China, and many other places.  I believe the world wants to know about the Great Lakes.

 

The Dynamic Great Lakes has been added to the National Clearinghouse of Math and Science, The Eisenhower Regional Consoritia (enc online)  a database for math and science, a resource widely used by schools.

 I  have given talks about the ever-changing Great Lakes at several bookstores, libraries and museums as well as schools.

 

Several public radio stations, and several public television stations have interviewed me and prominently displayed my book cover and URL as the program was aired, or in the case of radio, repeated the URL of my website over the air several times. 

 

The Dynamic Great Lakes, the book, will be listed as a resource in an educational program under development for the Great Lakes in Michigan.  The book is also listed as a resource in a book published by Michigan State University 

 

Because of a great many favorable reviews, the book has been critically acclaimed and re released by Independence Books.  It has also been updated with new material.  The Dynamic Great Lakes is in its fourth printing.  I believe that having a website has helped get the word out and this led to the book being chosen by the publisher to be re released. 

 If we do not work to conserve our life giving freshwater, we may find that the integrity of the lakes is damaged beyond repair.  My website allows people to see satellite views of the Great Lakes as well as places around the Great Lakes of interest: Chicago, Cleveland, Lake Michigan with its singing sands, the Door Peninsula in Canada and the Bruce Peninsula in Canada with their limestone formations, population centers, invasive species, fish, both endemic and planted or accidentally released into the lakes.

 

A website can be a valuable adjunct to a book.    To keep the website fresh, I change it from time to time.  I have published other books, The Wilderness Within, a book of poems and a few essays. It is about wild places in the world and within the self; Sophia's Lost and Found, poems of above and below, and Between Sweetwater and Sand.  Although different genres, these books were  written with a deep appreciation of nature.

 

My poems are published on other websites that appreciate my work, the PW Review, Artvilla, Prairie Poetry, Wise Women’s Web, Betsie’s Literary Page, Creative Women’s Network UK.; Care2  These websites can be accessed around the globe.   In this way I can publish new work until I decide to publish another collection of poetry.  There is a community of poets who support and appreciate one another.

 

There is a community of people who are involved in the work of educating about the environment, and groups whose aim is to make a difference in improving the environment.  I can be in touch with these groups with a few keystrokes.  They let me know what is new and often send good feedback about my website.  Often we trade links.
 

These websites are Environmental Education on the internet (EE link); National Science Teachers Association (nst); Planeta.com; http://www.nalms.org; Teachers.net; Presbyterians for Restoring Nature; www.ecoiq.com; eco-portal; getCited; Book Sense; Care2 Environment Supersite; Michigan Authors and Illustrators Search Page; waterwebring; www.ideacog.net, a clever literary website; Creative Womens Network; A Celebration of Women Writers; Snakeskin; Teacher Talk Earth and Sky; 2River.org, a literary website and Poets House in New York City, www.poetshouse.org.

 

Some of the most ardent conservationists are outdoorsmen and women.  I won an award from Water and Woods for my website.  I contribute articles to websites and sometimes they review my book:  Lakeland Boating has such a website as does Great Lakes Boating; www.great-lakes.org; Fishing With Rod, a website in British Columbia where my book was reviewed; Float Fishing, a website in Toronto.

                                 

I can be in touch with communities in far-flung places with my website.  My book is available to purchase in other countries such as Canada, Japan, Germany, England, and France, Australia through various on-line stores.