Disclaimer: This is an automated transcript, we apologize for any errors. If you notice any problems, please email the show at teachmeaboutthegreatlakes@gmail.com. Thank you.

Stuart Carlton 0:00
teach me about the Great Lakes. Teach me about the Great Lakes. Welcome back to teach me about the Great Lakes a twice monthly podcast in which I A Great Lakes novice as people who are smarter and harder working than I am to teach me all about the Great Lakes. My name is Stuart Carlton and I work with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and I am joined today by my good friend, Rini Miles, Rini. How are you?

Renie Miles 0:22
I'm good. I'm good. It's Monday morning. And it's a it's a cold week coming this way. But, you know, bring his comment again.

Stuart Carlton 0:30
That's what they claim, I looked at my little phone forecast thing, and it said 100% chance of snow tomorrow. And we have like a weather complaints slack group. And I haven't logged on to slack in a while. But I'm going to log on to Slack this afternoon to enter that into the weather complaints. Because it's not even early April at this point. And this snow thing is ridiculous. But yeah, I hear you, I'm fine. Actually, I'm really more than fine, because we have a chance today to talk to an old friend of Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, Annie Schofield, and she's actually literally Well, figuratively, I think on a boat, literally in Port, while she's doing the spring survey with EPA on their cool book called The Lake guardian. So I'm pumped about this opportunity. Because how often you get to talk to someone on a boat,

Renie Miles 1:17
I was just gonna say not much. That's that. I'm looking forward to this. That's why I'm here.

Stuart Carlton 1:22
That's why I'm here too. And even more important than that, though, and he is of course a researcher, which means we get to do the researcher feature theme song. So very excited about that. Let's do that. Then we'll talk to any

researcher or feature researcher, teachers about third grade. Our guest today is Dr. Annie Schofield. She is the chief scientist on the research vessel Lake guardian. And she's also the lead for the biology monitoring program with the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office and any urine spring survey right now. So where are we talking to you from?

Dr. Annie Scofield 2:08
Hi, Stuart, really excited to be here today. Currently, the lake Guardian is in port in Duluth, Minnesota. So we have finished most of the sampling for our spring circuit survey. We've been through all of the lakes and we just have a few sites left on Lake Superior to sample on our way back to port in Milwaukee in the next few days.

Stuart Carlton 2:27
How long have you been out them?

Dr. Annie Scofield 2:28
We have been out since April 1. So almost 20 days now. Yeah, a while?

Renie Miles 2:34
Well, what's it like to be on a ship for that length of time?

Dr. Annie Scofield 2:37
You know, it's just kind of a different pace of life out here. Our schedules are really different. We each work 12 hour shift from 4am to 4pm. Or, or the opposite for the night shift. I actually am pretty used to being on boats for extended periods of time. I've done that quite a bit in my life now. So the different pace than onshore. But I really enjoy it. Just being out and doing field work is really fun.

Stuart Carlton 3:01
Is there like a seasickness situation for some people? Or is everybody pretty used to it at this point?

Dr. Annie Scofield 3:05
Unfortunately, there are always some challenges with that, depending on on the sea state I myself do get seasick sometimes. So it's definitely a challenge. But you know, usually if the weather's too bad, we aren't able to sample reliably anyway. So we kind of duck in, try and try and write it out. But yeah, we deal with it the best we can.

Stuart Carlton 3:25
What kind of circling, you're all doing anybody like us nets, I assume like do you? Are they trolls? Or do you set out knots and come and pick them up what kind of what kind of work you'll do, we do

Dr. Annie Scofield 3:33
a lot of different work to look at all components of the lower foodweb. So by that I mean everything in the lakes below the level of fish. So mostly the way we sample is we drive around the lakes and we stop at our long term monitoring sites and we deploy a variety of things. We collect water samples and put instruments down to take data just have water quality, we also toe nets but we don't generally move around with the nets we do stationary nets. So we put one down all the way to the bottom or however deep you want to toe for zooplankton. And then just bring it back to the surface so their vertical net toes, instead of turning them around. We also take grabs of the lake bottom of the sediment. Those are the main things that we do on these surveys but of course and we also have a lot of other surveys that we do that aren't just the routine spring and summer monitoring surveys and deploy all sorts of different equipment on those too.

Stuart Carlton 4:29
So how long till you're pulling these nuts up? How long did so you drop them down? And you pull them with vertical sampling is it take like I don't even know what the depths are like Michigan is the deepest great lake right? I think I've learned that on the show.

Dr. Annie Scofield 4:39
Lake Superior I think is the best Yep.

Stuart Carlton 4:42
What is like Michigan it's got some deal.

Dr. Annie Scofield 4:44
It is pretty deep. Lake Michigan

Stuart Carlton 4:46
it's pretty deep lakes periods of deepest man Lake Superior is always just get out of here with that. That's what I said. Yeah. Anyway, I feel like Lake Michigan is the deepest even if it's not actually but my point is is how long does it take to would drop one down and then pull it up like is that like, is it like, you know Zippy or is it something, you leave it down for a certain amount of time,

Dr. Annie Scofield 5:05
it takes a while, it depends on the depth, obviously. So we deploy our equipment, mostly at the same speed, no matter how deep it is, our typical rate for deploying wire that has equipment on it is, I think, half a meter per second. So you can do the math on that. Sometimes it's really quick and like URI, but when we get to our sites that are close to, we have some stations and lakes appear that are, you know, 200, something close to 300 meters, that's quite a long time, we don't put everything down all the way to the bottom of the lake. But when we do, for example, my SIP toes at night, those are really big nets that we use to collect my kids, and they live deep in the water column. So we send those all the way down to the bottom. And we do two of them when we do sample for my kids. So those can take a pretty long time, even, you know, 20 minutes or something like that for each net.

Renie Miles 5:56
So when you're, when you're on the ship that long and you're sampling every day, more or less, what happens to the samples? Do they just kind of pile up till later? Or are you working on them as you go,

Dr. Annie Scofield 6:06
they do pile up till later. That's a very accurate description. So we collect all the samples, most of the different types of samples we collect, we preserve in some way. So water samples for nutrients we do that with, we also, you know, they'll plankton or benthic invertebrate samples will preserve and take back to the lab where taxonomist can look at those samples under the microscope later, and it'll take a long time to process those samples. There are a few things we analyze on board, like some of our nutrients, dissolved reactive phosphorus, for example, we do on board, but a lot of the stuff is analyzed later.

Stuart Carlton 6:42
And so then so scientists look at the data, right? And they get all this and it they process it over many months, but I would assume, what are they what do they do with all of this stuff that you collect? Like? How does the data use are the data used, like in management decisions, or how are they used,

Dr. Annie Scofield 6:57
our data are directly used in management decisions. And that's, you know, the goal of the long term monitoring program is to track changes across all five of the lakes that are occurring over time. And that directly informs our, our lake wide action and management plans and also fisheries groups. So people who are doing modeling of the lakes to understand how many fish we should stock or other things like that, or how, how changing regulations might affect the lakes, these data go into, you know, models and things like that. So, definitely these data are used. And I will just say, you know, these data are able to be collected, because we are really fortunate to have funding to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative that keeps this program going so that we have a continuous stream of data to plug into that that process of adaptive management. So it's really important for those decisions, I would say,

Stuart Carlton 7:52
how far back is it to go? I don't even know it occurred to me like we have been doing it for quite some time not used specifically. But but you can Glenpool have been doing this for a long time. How far back does the data go?

Dr. Annie Scofield 8:01
Yeah, so the monitoring program, as we know, it began in the 1980s different lakes were added at a little bit different times depending on when we thought we needed to start monitoring them. So I think Lake Superior was the last one added in 1992. Yeah, a few decades now, we have been monitoring the lakes going out and doing the same type of sampling year after year, so that we can track long term changes in the foodweb health and water quality.

Stuart Carlton 8:26
What's interesting, you have this long data set. And I think that that brings up kind of the next thing I want to talk about, which is good. And that is what long term changes. Have you seen in the great let you know, what can we see through this dataset? What are changes to the area that that are apparent.

Dr. Annie Scofield 8:40
So there have been a lot of changes across all of the Great Lakes over the last several decades. Some of the key ones that have affected how lakes are functioning are first, I would say changes to the nutrients coming into the lake. And second, I would say invasive species impacts especially mussels, Zebra and quagga mussels. So first nutrient, so a lot of the lakes have have become clearer and had fewer nutrients going into the lake over time. So this is really affected especially like Ontario, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. You might recall in the 1970s, you know, there were a lot of water quality issues around that time. And the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality agreement was actually a really big success story in terms of management and conservation of the Great Lakes. So what we saw is in response to the targets that they said nutrients really decreased. And in these lakes we've seen them getting clearer getting cleaner, less algae growing in the offshore waters, lakes, and that's also impacted so plankton and everything else. And then another thing that is really effective lakes are invasive species. So as I mentioned, zebra mussels kind of came in first and now quagga mussels, which are kind of a cousin of zebra mussels have taken over and they've expanded throughout all of the lakes and they filter algae out of the way water column and make it clear, really change how nutrient cycle through the lake and just completely change the foodweb and how these lakes are functioning. So what we're seeing is a big interaction between how nutrients have changed and how muscles are impacting to the lake so that you know Michigan and Huron are almost like Lake Superior in terms of water quality now, and and how much algae is in the lakes like productivity and stuff. So big changes for sure.

Stuart Carlton 10:27
With Michigan, specifically, the water is minor serious water is a lot clearer now than it used to be is that is that what you've noticed?

Dr. Annie Scofield 10:34
That is accurate, the water is much clearer and getting clear. So

Stuart Carlton 10:37
and so someone I work with, I won't say his name, but you know Him will say unofficially, that the water in Lake Michigan is maybe even too clear at this point. And so without asking you to evaluate that. Do you think it's you know, the, you're seeing the water clarity really influenced the way the food web works? And what is what are sort of the can you tell us what the changes are, I guess,

Dr. Annie Scofield 10:57
sure, there are those that may concerns about the water being too clear, or that really translates to the lake not being quite as productive. So not as much algae growing, and that trickles all the way up the food web to fish, eventually, I'm in the concerns about that, or because fisheries are really important to the Great Lakes. And a lot of ways and so that's kind of I think, where people are coming from when they're saying it's too clear is is concerned for the fish populations with the lake can support. So clear water can impact everything and impacts where algae can grow in the water column or on the bottom of the lake how deep light is reaching, it also has impacts like UV radiation can impact the plankton and larval fish and make them need to move deeper in the water column or cause issues. So there are a lot of things that water clarity can impact that you might not think about at first, including, you know, how we sample and, and things like that. So it's a really complex issue is the short story. There's some really great things about clear water, and there's some concerns about it getting too clear as well.

Renie Miles 12:02
So I was wondering about the quagga mussels. It's my understanding, they're kind of more of a problem, which I guess I'm oversimplifying things, zebra mussels right now, how did that happen? How did they push their cousins out?

Dr. Annie Scofield 12:16
So almost all of the muscles in the Great Lakes now are quagga mussels. You're right about that. And what we've seen is they've kind of out competed zebra mussels, it seems like I'm not sure that we know, you know exactly why that is the case. But what we do know is that they can live in a wider range of habitat. So they can actually move all the way to really deep offshore sites. So you look at 100 meters and like Michigan, and it's just like a carpet of quagga mussels. So, beaver mussels, mostly we're staying closer to shore on Rocky substrates. It seems like quagga mussels are able to, you know, live in a wider range of habitats. So that's, that's probably part of it. And yeah, they are continuing to have really big impacts and expanding into deeper waters and the different lakes and altering the food web.

Stuart Carlton 13:04
So shifting gears a bit, there are kind of a couple of big trends. Right? So you're doing this in the year 2021. Right, you're doing spring survey. And we're a couple of big trends. And I'm kind of curious about societal trends, I guess, that I'm gonna ask about. So the first is, you know, we're still in the middle of COVID. And the pandemic, What have y'all done about that? To stay safe? I mean, you're in it's really confined area. Right. So it seems risky, what kind of precautions have been taken and and you find it that's really influenced the way that you've done your work? Or?

Dr. Annie Scofield 13:32
That's a good question. And the short answer is, yes, there's been a lot of thought and planning going into our code safety. So all of our surveys last year, in 2020, were canceled, actually. And we were not able to do those in a way that we felt was safe. And this year, this is the first survey of the year, we're hoping to do more. The precautions that we took prior to this survey are everyone who was on board was in a hotel and isolation for two weeks before we got on the boat. And we did testing at the start in the end of that period. So everyone came in without having had contact and having tested negative prior to being on the boat. Even so, on the vessel, we are wearing masks and making sure to clean things really frequently, you know, being really cautious and that sort of thing. So it's definitely been a big effort to get this to happen safely.

Stuart Carlton 14:23
That's amazing. So you'd left on April 1, we got to show up in the middle of March then and just hanging out in a hotel room. Yes. Unbelievable level of dedication. Hopefully, hopefully there's hazard pay to comment on an ad or so the other big societal trend I think that is worth talking about is this has been like the spring of sea shanties. And so like are people singing a lot of sea shanties on the boat or is it kind of something you're sick of at this point?

Dr. Annie Scofield 14:48
I wish I could say that people were seeing sea shanties. I don't think I've heard a single one.

Stuart Carlton 14:54
Are you are you completely unaware of the sea shanty thing that just occurred to me maybe you're so disconnected, you know,

Dr. Annie Scofield 14:59
honestly I am I'm out of blue. I have not heard about this. I do really like sea shanties. And when I worked at sea Education Association, as sailboats doing study abroad programs in oceanography, there are lots of sea shanties in that world and I really enjoyed it. I am not a great singer myself, but I enjoy listening to other people seeing them. So yeah, I hadn't heard this trend. We're a little bit isolated. We have internet but don't have a lot of browsing capacity.

Stuart Carlton 15:29
wasted on on tick tock. I think it's, I assume the fact that I know about it now means it's over, which is fine. But yeah, there was some dude, like did a sea shanty called the weatherman. And then they became like this wonderous thing that happened, where people were adding on to it and changing it and everything. And it was really great. That sounds fantastic. Anyway, and so to have missed the sea shanties, it's very sad, but I think that's, that's probably okay. So you don't cross all five great lakes. And I think of them is, you know, you think of the Great Lakes is like a region. But is that a fair to and a lot of the Great Lakes kind of, they'll drain into each other and whatever. But are they really similar? They kind of tend to differ, what are the like the most notable differences among the lakes, I suppose

Dr. Annie Scofield 16:11
that's a good question. And maybe a little bit of a different one, a difficult one. But all of the Great Lakes are certainly unique. They have, you know, they've similar biological communities, but they all have their distinct their distinct features as well. So I've been moved to the Great Lakes, it is fun to look at the differences, whether that being you know how productive The lake is water chemistry, on the species that we find there, the depth of the lake, probably the biggest contrast that I could draw would be between Lake Erie and Lake Superior. So those are kind of the endpoints, and then the other lakes fall somewhere in between in terms of a lot of the different characteristics. So like, it was really shallow, and each basin of Lake area is almost a lake in itself, because they're all so different. And then Lake Superior is the deepest lake. And it's interesting when we're out here, when we sample the North Shore of Lake Superior, the best cemetry just drops off really fast. So we're in 200 meters of water sampling, but we can see the shore, which is really cool and different than the other lakes where we're mostly out in the middle of like, just water all around us.

Stuart Carlton 17:14
I see. Oh, so the bathymetry helped me with that. That's like how quickly that's what the lake bottom looks like. Right? And how quickly it drops off, essentially.

Dr. Annie Scofield 17:22
Yeah, so it's like topography, you know, mountains, but opposite and the bottom, bottom of the lake.

Renie Miles 17:27
So to the lake, some all have similar issues, in terms of their foodweb, you know, with the zebra mussels and quagga mussels and the rest of the story. So there's

Dr. Annie Scofield 17:39
similarities and differences, I would say Lake Michigan and Lake Huron have fairly similar stories right now in terms of these drastic increases in water clarity and interaction with the muscles and crashes or declines, I'll say, and in some of the biomass of different organisms, including fish, Lake Superior is kind of the steady, steadier Lake. You know, there haven't been as drastic changes in Lake Superior. There aren't a lot of muscles established in Lake Superior, and just a little bit of a unique or different lake. And then Lake areas. The other end of the spectrum, again, where especially the western basin, which is really shallow, have very different issues than some of the other areas. They still, you know, their issues with harmful algal blooms or cyanobacteria blooms, you've probably heard about in that area. So some similarities, but also some differences

Stuart Carlton 18:31
will relate to that, because yeah, we don't have harmful algal blooms really here in Lake Michigan. That's not a thing, at least in our part of like Michigan, but it is elsewhere. It's the sort of the increased water clarity that you're seeing in reduced product reduce productivities that influence the presence of Habs, or is it? Is it kind of a separate deal? Did they just, you know, sort of turn up regardless,

Dr. Annie Scofield 18:52
generally speaking, when you have fewer nutrients coming into the lake that's associated with less algae growing and more clear water. And so there is a correlation there. You know, most most systems that are relatively low nutrient systems, or oligotrophic, as we would call it, like like Michigan don't have a lot of issues with cyanobacteria blooms are harmful algal blooms. So there's definitely a correlation. What's interesting is actually there, there have been some increase in abundance, or at least, you know, noteworthy abundances of cyanobacteria in oligotrophic systems, too. So there there's a group in Lake Superior that's studying that. Right now. A lot of people working on trying to understand those but it's a very different scales and like what we see in like Erie

Stuart Carlton 19:39
Well, I mean, this is all really interesting stuff. And it sounds like you're doing good and important work is part of the spring survey. But that's actually not why we invited you here on teach me about the Great Lakes. The reason that we invited you on to teach me about the Great Lakes is this. If you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch, which one would you choose? That

Dr. Annie Scofield 19:58
is a critically important Question, Stuart, thank you for asking it. I will, I think I would have to say that a great sandwich for lunch would be my preference. I do like sweets, a lot like dessert, but I prefer it to be in the evening rather than in the morning. So I'm gonna go with the sandwich.

Stuart Carlton 20:17
Gotcha. And are you? Are you in the Glencoe office in Chicago? Is that where you work? Normally when not on a boat?

Dr. Annie Scofield 20:22
i Yes, we'll be working in the Glencoe office in Chicago. That is where I based I haven't I actually started about a year ago. So have not ever gone into the office regularly with the EPA, so I'm working remotely this whole time. my

Stuart Carlton 20:39
follow up question is supposed to be where can I go to get a sandwich in Chicago, but I'm gonna phrase it this way instead. So what is the best thing to eat on the RV late guardian, when you're out there? Like I assume the food situation is maybe not West Lafayette levels of bleak, but it's not ideal. But what is the best thing to eat on the boat.

Dr. Annie Scofield 20:56
So we do have pretty good food here on the lake guardian, because we have, you know, cooks that have a lot of experience and make good and different food every day, I think it'd be hard to say what the best thing to eat out here would be I think it would be you know, whatever, whatever's for dinner, you know, there we we whatever the cook makes, and generally speaking, we're really fortunate to have great food out here on the survey.

Stuart Carlton 21:20
So it is better than West Lafayette. Actually, maybe in that sense.

Dr. Annie Scofield 21:22
You know, I, as you know, I've lived in West Lafayette as well. And it's different. Yeah, maybe a little more variety out here you see in that area.

Stuart Carlton 21:34
The second one of our new questions is this. So you're you're the chief scientist on the lake Guardian, and you're like a lead for the biology monitoring program? What is it that makes you good at your job, right? What are some key skills for this kind of work, or for working on a research vessel kind of generally.

Dr. Annie Scofield 21:48
So serving in this role requires that I have a lot of different skill sets, I would say. So obviously, I have a foundation and in the science and understanding the sampling that we're doing, and the the standard operating procedures and all of that stuff and training people. But I would say this job, a lot of it. What makes me or anyone else good at it is also the soft skills that we have to bring to the table. So it's not just about coordinating the science, it's also about managing people and making sure that everyone is, you know, getting along well, on the boat boats can be a little bit of a challenging environment, sometimes, you're all in close quarters, people are tired working crazy hours and stuff like that. So you have to be able to talk to people, even when you're not at your best or when they're not at their best. And then also, I'd say problem solving is a really big part of the job, you know, when something's not working, you got to figure out how to make it work with limited resources on the boat. So that is definitely really important. And lastly, I'll add that, it turns out, being chief scientists only guardian also comes with some responsibility to talk to the press and the media along the way. So we've had a lot of media coverage on this spring survey. So I've done some radio interviews, some print interviews for print, as well as some live TV segments along the way, which is something completely new to me.

Stuart Carlton 23:11
How did that go? Like we're able to adapt? Okay, I haven't really done TV.

Dr. Annie Scofield 23:15
Yeah, it was actually really fun. I found the live TV was actually easier than maybe some of the stuff for radio or for, you know, phone or Zoom interviews, just because you're talking to an actual person, and you can kind of read those those cues and stuff like that we were distanced, you know, not right next to each other. I was on the boat, they were on shore, but the energy is really different when it's live, compared to when it's recorded.

Stuart Carlton 23:37
Well, actually, I do have one more question. I'm not gonna lie. Okay. And that question is this. So you? I mean, you're right next to the boat, right? Are you on the boat literally or next to it,

Dr. Annie Scofield 23:46
we're literally on the boat, we have not stepped foot off of the boat since we got on the boat. And that is part of our COVID safety plan.

Stuart Carlton 23:52
So you're important, you don't even get to go off the boat. We do

Dr. Annie Scofield 23:55
not get to get off the boat. We are a bubble. So we're staying here. The I guess very minor exception is that we have done some no contact delivery or drop off sort of situations of equipment and food for groceries. And so there's stuff you know, we leave it on the dock and someone picks it up or they leave it on the dock and then we come out and pick it up. So we've stepped foot on the dock for those purposes, but we've not left not not gone anywhere. Otherwise. So we're we're all thinking that.

Stuart Carlton 24:24
Well, since you're literally on the boat, here's here's the question I want to ask. And that is this. Do you think it would be possible to maybe ask someone to honk the horn on the boat? I mean, just for us, if you ask very nicely.

Dr. Annie Scofield 24:37
I can certainly ask it will take me just a minute to get up to the pilot house and see if that's an option. But I'll I'll see what I can do for you. I'll go ahead and bring you with me. I might I'll put my headphones around my neck. I won't be able to hear you the whole time or actually maybe I ought to just take you off my headphones. works for you. It works for me. I will I will just go see if anyone knows Even in the pilot house, they're probably going to be very confused by this. One second, I found I found the captain. All right, good news. We can blow a salute. He says.

Captain Dean 25:13
Where are they at?

Dr. Annie Scofield 25:16
No, they're on the phone. Doors. Open the door. Okay, I'll go outside so you can hear about her. Right, here we go

Stuart Carlton 25:35
that might be the greatest moment of my entire life.

Renie Miles 25:39
That was an awesome sound.

Stuart Carlton 25:42
Oh, thank you so much.

Dr. Annie Scofield 25:45
Dean, if you want to say hi to him.

Stuart Carlton 25:47
Hello. Hi there, Captain Dean. My name is Stuart. Thank you so much.

Captain Dean 25:51
Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, I hope that blows us. No way. Anyway, we had some snow this morning and air for a couple hours. Snow in April. So like 27 degrees here and supposed to be 21. Tomorrow. Tonight, I mean, oh, my goodness. But that snow doesn't last. I mean, it's just like snow on July, you know, it hits the ground has gone?

Stuart Carlton 26:13
No, I don't know. I've not experienced snow in July.

Dr. Annie Scofield 26:19
All right, so you got your wish?

Stuart Carlton 26:21
Oh, I got more than my wish. Thank you so much for putting up with our nonsense. Or my nonsense. I want to be very clear. This is one person's nonsense only. I do not speak for the program. Well, that's amazing. It's so fun and interesting to talk to somebody. In this situation when when is your next big cruise that you're going to be on.

Dr. Annie Scofield 26:39
So we are hoping to have several other surveys this season. The next one that will be up is in July, we're going to do an intensive survey Lake Michigan to look at the community on the bottom of the lake benthic invertebrates. So that's our big survey in July. We'll be out again for our summer survey going through all five of the lakes in August.

Stuart Carlton 26:59
Oh, awesome. Well, hopefully we'll be talking to you again, during one of those, but in between now and then and where can people go to find out more about the surveys and your work and things like that.

Dr. Annie Scofield 27:08
So there's a lot of information about our monitoring program on our website. And also, there's some resources like the Lake Michigan story map that was developed by Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant that's available to learn more about what's going on in the Great Lakes.

Stuart Carlton 27:23
Fantastic. And we'll put links to those in our show notes, which you can find right now. Either just look down at your phone, or fire up your web browser go to teach me about the great lakes.com/thirty That's three zero because this is episode 30. Dr. Andy Schofield chief scientists for the RV Lake guardian and lead for the biology monitoring program at the EPA Great Lakes National Program Office. Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

Dr. Annie Scofield 27:47
Thanks for having me. It was really fun.

Stuart Carlton 28:02
Well, that was something.

Renie Miles 28:04
Yeah, that was. That was great.

Stuart Carlton 28:07
No, that's definitely put a nice little button on my morning, I think and, you know, I mean, it's great to talk to me and the work they do there is so important for the EPA, and they're such good partners too. So it's nice to hear that a they're able to do it this year, despite COVID stuff and they'll be there doing their usual paying up job.

Renie Miles 28:24
Yes, indeed. Yeah. Because they, they have a long history of keeping the lakes monitored and, and

Stuart Carlton 28:31
knowing it's all good. Yep. Yeah, I can imagine so they've been on the boat forever, essentially, at this point, you know, in almost a month when you count the the pre quarantine time. That's a that's a long time. I think you get a little bit bad either. But it sounds like she's doing great, which is awesome. Really well. Where can people go to find out more about all the awesome stuff. We do it Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant? I asked you because I can't ever remember.

Renie Miles 28:52
Yeah, our website is AIC grant. yeah.org. Yeah.

Stuart Carlton 28:58
And we do lots of tweets, right? We do the tweet set. Hang on, I know this. I could do this. i l i NC grant, that's our tweeting. Or if you want to the show the show. account is teach Great Lakes on Twitter, at Teach Great Lakes you can find out about the stuff we're doing there. And with that, thank you everybody for listening in. We will see you on the first Monday of every month and the third Monday of most months. And I'm going to pretend that we are releasing this on time. And in between now and then everybody stay safe, have fun and keep greatin' those lakes!