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 John. Welcome back to teach me about the Great Lakes and exactly 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'm thrilled to be joined today by a Tubac of CO hosts first, our Senior history correspondent Ethan Chitty Ethan, how are you?

Ethan Chitty 0:29
I'm good. How are you today?

Stuart Carlton 0:30
I'm great. Ethan is the newest co host. So he gets first billing, but we're so glad to have you on. We're so glad to have you back in action after your little break. And Ethan wasn't suspended people. It was a personal matter. But a joyful personal matter. We're also joined today by our strategic communicator. Miss strategy herself. Renie Miles, how are you?

Renie Miles 0:50
I'm good, Stuart. It's a beautiful, another beautiful September morning.

Stuart Carlton 0:54
Is it? Yeah, it was like 54 here, but the good kind of 54. Right. You want a nice backbone of 78. If you're going to have a 54.

Renie Miles 1:02
That's the base, right?

Stuart Carlton 1:05
Yeah, right. That's the base. It's good. Yeah.

Ethan Chitty 1:07
Good day to sit on the porch and drink a cup of coffee as the sun comes up.

Stuart Carlton 1:11
Yep, I bet it is sitting on the porch and drinking. It's something I intend to do very soon. That's totally true. Yeah. Glad to be back. So today, I'm, well, we'll get to our guests in a minute. But first, we have a handful of announcements. The first announcement is this. We are just moments away from scheduling our discussion or book club discussion of death of life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan. So if you haven't read that book yet, go ahead and read it. And we're gonna reach out via social media and others for your comments, you can send us a comment, you know, via email to you about the great lakes@gmail.com Or you can put it on our hotline, which is 765496 IESG. So if you have questions or comments, please do that. Um, but if you haven't read it yet, please go ahead and read it. Because we're going to get that I think that's gonna finally be in October. I've been saying this summer for a while. And I think October is reasonably included within the summer, at least when it comes to these purposes here. So if you haven't read it, read it. It's really, really good, really interesting book. I have lots of quibbles, but I'm so I'm excited to talk about it. But I also learned a lot, so it's good. And then the second big announcements, the lake ease Renier, you fired up about the lake ease.

Renie Miles 2:17
Oh, man. I'm an award show junkie. So there you go.

Stuart Carlton 2:21
Yeah, I've already got my little black dress that I'm going to wear to it. And yeah, so the Lakers are weird. If you are not familiar, because this is the first time you've listened. Go back and listen to the last 40 episodes. But if you don't feel like doing that, you're just now the Lakers are our annual starting this year award ceremony that we're calling, possibly not the least prestigious, Great Lakes based awards show that there is and I'm willing to stick to that. And so what we're doing is we're accepting nominations for a variety of categories things like Great Lakes, news of the year, Great Lakes Outreach Program of the Year Great Lakes scientific paper the year. Great Lakes animal of the year. Right now that's a very contentious one, Great Lakes animal, the Great Lakes non animal of the air for everything that's not an animal. And then of course, Great Lakes sandwich the Great Lakes donuts here and other things like that. So we want you to go nominate somebody for the lake ease or nominator program, do it right now look in the show notes for the link but just go to bitly.com/lake ease 21 That's la que i e s 21. And nominate some different ladies you can nominate for as many or as few categories as you want. And we're gonna throw those into the hopper. And then we are going to through a process that is yet to be determined. Come up with a series of Leakey these winter. And that'll be our probably our last episode of the year. So time is getting short. So if you have a great program, go nominate it. But so what I want to do today is I like to feature some of the nominees, right. Because well, I'm learning about all kinds of cool stuff. And so today's nominee that I'm going to feature is the clean lakes Alliance, which was recently nominated for Outreach Program of the Year. And so you can go to clean Lake alliance.org and see their website and so it's a nonprofit dedicated to the improvement and protection of lakes streams and wetlands in the Yarra River watershed. And I'll be honest, I have not heard of the horror river but that's the river that goes through like all the lakes that are in Madison, Wisconsin. It's that's a river there. And so they work on community awareness issues and things like that. But what I really love and so they partner with government and with businesses and nonprofits and things like that, but when you go to their website, they have a couple of cool things. So what I'm looking at now is the this it looks like a newsroom posts or whatever they call it. Photographers share their view of our watershed. So I'll go click on out of the screen here to photography Are you are you are you there? Now?

Renie Miles 4:35
I'm not I mean, I'm on the site.

Stuart Carlton 4:36
Check this out. So here's a cool picture of Jager Park. No, that's not the cool That is cool. But the Ramos Cove there we go about three down beside a frozen Lake Mendota and I look at that and I'm like, Man, winter isn't my bag, but boy, is that beautiful, isn't it?

Renie Miles 4:52
Yeah, it's very nice.

Stuart Carlton 4:55
A lot of beautiful so they have all these I think I mean, these are some good photographers. Nice cool Colors. Yeah, some beautiful photography here. So even if you're not in the area, I rec. Oh, wait, I know I was telling you about the wrong thing. That's why. Let me see. I was looking at the hidden gems. The photographers have got some beautiful photos like some aerial shots. Yeah, some really neat aerial shots of Madison, I think. Yep. But then if you go to the hidden gems, which is another kind of news where we post that's where you see the ray MERS Cove. And it's got this cool. It's like water cascading down into ice. Or it's just ice and it's like, okay, winter stinks. But that's pretty nice. Yeah, it can be beautiful, as we all know. So anyway, I encourage you to go to clean lakes alliance.org to if nothing else, look at the photography and say this is pretty neat. And it looks like a wonderful site and a wonderful program. But will it winter Leakey, you just have to tune into December to find out.

Renie Miles 5:49
There's also a What can I do section which looks to be really helpful in terms. Yeah. You know, different activities and opportunities.

Ethan Chitty 5:58
While you're looking for that. There's also the top 10 ways to help the lakes at home list.

Stuart Carlton 6:03
There we go. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I see what can I do in the top menu bar there. So a lot of cool stuff. And I encourage you to check that out. I'm not going to do a drumroll thing like I do, because that always just is awkward. But yeah, so Anyway, like I say, the Great Lakes or the clean lakes Alliance, excuse me, cool website, cool program will win a lake you tuned in to find out. All right, great. So with that, we're gonna move on to our guest. And so I'm super fired up today. This is a program that I saw I was Googling for something, I can't remember what it was. And I saw this University of Toronto trash team. And it's a group of like scientists and outreach people at the University of Toronto, working on the issue of trash both in Toronto in that area, but also in the Great Lakes kind of broader and they said, You know what this is near and dear to our hearts. I thought it'd be cool to bring them on. And so I reached out and have a social scientists are like even more, and so we got her to come on. So we'll transition to our guests and then we'll do it. Let me hit the right one. Well, what I'm gonna do today, go to one of my new ones, here we go.

Our guest today is Dr. Rafael Gutierrez. He is the program lead for Social Science and Education Programs at the University of Toronto trash team. She's part of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology there. Raphael, how are you today?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 7:21
I'm great. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me today.

Stuart Carlton 7:24
Oh, we couldn't be more excited. Yeah, I'm always happy to talk trash. So first of all, tell us about the UT trash t what what is that? Exactly?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 7:32
So the trash team at the University have their own trash team is a science based community outreach group. And we are made up of students like they're graduated graduate students, postdocs, staff, and a lot of local volunteers, all working together with a common goal to increase waste literacy in our communities while reducing plastic pollution in our ecosystems.

Stuart Carlton 7:58
So what do you mean by science base there? That's an interesting way to phrase it. What a science based trash team?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 8:04
Oh, yes. Because everything that we do, it's based on science. We have our group, it's made of undergrad and graduate students. So everything that we producing and restarting our labs and our lives we translate this in, in the community and outreach in our outreach programs.

Renie Miles 8:23
So Raphael, what are some of the things that the trash team does? So, um,

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 8:29
our work falls into three areas of focus. So we do community outreach, school programs, and solution based research. Our local projects use research to inform policy and management and education and community outreach to increase waste literacy. So we try to engage the public and implement effective solutions. So for for example, our community outreach, we do a range of programs presentations throughout the year and we have to be cleanups, one in May, we call on spring cleanup, and another in September, the European leader challenge that will happen this weekend. And for solutions based research, we have projects where we use science and research to help inform a solution. So we have a bunch of many individual research happening. For example, we have one that we call homeboys out it that's four weeks challenge to learn about waste streams in our in our municipality, as we increase our own waste footprint. We have like fighting flow troubles in Toronto Harbour. We collaborate with the port's Toronto and also TRCA on local research and technological solutions to present and clean up floating plastics and another leader in our hydrophones. We also have pollution prevention project. One of the So I work with that. So one of these projects is about single use footwear. And I'm a leading research to understand the challenges and opportunities that local business experience when employed with implementing reusable programs. So we wanted to understand what the local business needs to reduce single use footwear. And so now we, we are running this project during the summer. Yeah, so those are one of the projects that we are doing here.

Stuart Carlton 10:30
So single use footwear that has to do that's like plastic forks and knives and straws and things like that. Is that right? So sorry, we're finding what what are the? Is it too early to say? Or what are some challenges that businesses have with that? They?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 10:43
Well, they are facing a lot of challenge. Price is one of them. Of course, single use is cheaper. The customers still need to change their mindset. So it's easier for them to just go and grab a disposable cup and then just throw away and don't need to worry about having to wash your cup. So it's still it's something it's a cultural thing that we needed to change. And that's take time. And also the City of Toronto, they are implementing, like a voluntary measurement for business to start to promote this reusable outreach initiatives. So we'll see the next probably next year things will hopefully we change in the city a little bit.

Renie Miles 11:31
I have a question about, about the trash team in general, is it like how does it work? Is it this? Do you have a lot of volunteers as part of the project? And and what sort of things would they do? And yes, just learn more?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 11:48
Yes, exactly. We have a very, very big volunteers group. So everything is run by we have a small staff group that is only Chelsea's Susan and I are the co founders of the trash team. And then we had outreach as well, one specialist, and the rest is all volunteer. So for example, our school program now we are starting to engage more students from U of T from our departments to be instructors in the our great, our great five lessons classrooms. So they are all volunteers. And they, we have volunteers, a lot of volunteers are from the University of Toronto, and from Rockman lab. So that's our like, a strong group. But we have volunteers from the city from different universities, or just people like young scientists or people that just interested in the topic

Ethan Chitty 12:49
on your own waste audits that you were doing. I noticed that part of that project theme of grief, the some of the research for that came out of Great Britain. So were you guys collecting audit information from the US and Canada and other places as well still?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 13:07
Yes, exactly. So we we ran two ways out it so far. And the second one we did like research as well. So what we do is we gather the people who are interested in change their behavior, and learn a little bit more about waste. So we invite them to do a challenge of collecting their waste, and counting out it for a month for weeks. So the first week, we have a webinar, and we explain all the problems of plastic pollution. And then we ask them to count their waste, like tally everything that they produce in a week. And then the second week, we encourage them to look into their waste management stream. So here in the city of Toronto, they can go on their website and try to find information, if they're how to properly dispose of their waste. And then we send a lot of tips to reduce waste. And we after that four weeks later, they stopped to tally. And then we add two months later, we have another survey asking what's changed. So we have a quantitative analysis we see we get all the data's and we see if they change the number of ways that they are producing, but also they explain what changed, they made it and so it's a very interesting tool that we are using. It's not only outreach, but it's a research as well. And it's really fun to see and that people were learning a little bit about waste and how they can reduce and their problems. So it's a very interesting research. And yeah, so you asked me the first one we had people from your us we had some participants from the UK as well. So yes, it's it's not Not only here in Toronto,

Stuart Carlton 15:02
that's interesting. And so most of your research is on the social science side, right? You, as far as I know, you're interested in policy and sort of improving, it seems largely tied around food waste. No,

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 15:12
no, no, it's it's not only about food waste we work with majority our work is with plastic. Okay, so my biggest, biggest role right now is running the school program. So we have I was explaining we have like three focusing in in different areas. And the third one is the school program. So, of course, waste literacy is a core to our mission. And so we schools were a logical choice for one of our target audience. So we create a school problem for school program for grade five students. And we have a series of lessons designed to improve scientific gain, and waste literacy. And now also foster this curiosity about the natural world and our impacts on the planet and ecos ecosystem then planet. So we have like, three grade four lessons, we talk about plastic cycle watershed. The second one is watershed and their relationship to leader impacts on of plastic on ecosystems and solutions to plastic pollution. So we have like those lessons that kids will learn how to manage their waste. What's happened with they learned about circular and linear economy, and then the second one, the watersheds and sources of pollution and plastic that ended up in the water. So how plastic moves are now moving the water, and then we discuss like, Okay, now it's in the water, what what are the impacts in the animals and the wildlife ecosystems in general. So we talk about entanglement, ingestion of plastics, and solutions, and then they have like, they will learn, they will start to design their own solutions, they will discuss what they can do about it. And so they can create some technologies to clean the water they have. They have different aspects of they can create it. So that's the time that they can have the opportunity to think about their impacts and how they can do something about it.

Stuart Carlton 17:18
So you're doing things from like, all the way from macro plastics down to micro plastics with the students that sounds like so what is two questions One is, so the whole shtick with this podcast is that I'm kind of ignorant. And it's a little bit of a stick, but it's also a little bit true. So I have two questions you can pick up in either order. One is what is the difference between a circular and a linear economy pretend that pretend that I'm real dumb and don't know that. And a two is I want to hear the coolest plastic solution that you've seen a fifth grader come up with? So whichever of those you prefer to take first? Yeah,

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 17:50
maybe we can start with the coolest idea as well. Kids are very creative. And actually, they, many of them had ideas that they already one of the solutions that they decided to create, it was one that we actually have here in the Tirana and they didn't and also, they they know like about technology in general. One of them was like, they wanna jetski go around the city and they have like, they have to do like certain movements in the water that the coolest movement when but also they have to collect waste leader in the water as they are doing the competition of in the water. So I thought that was pretty funny.

Stuart Carlton 18:37
jetski race while collecting Yeah, it's like the best version of Mario Kart, okay,

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 18:41
yes. And about linear circular economy as we teach our students. linear economy is something that we produce we consume, and we dispose and of the story that stopped there. And then you have to have another you have to produce another. If you want to have another water bottle, plastic water bottle you needed to produce again, and consume and dispose and put in the garbage or circular economy. It's when you Yes, it's a circle, instead of putting their garbage it goes to the recycling and then goes into the process again,

Stuart Carlton 19:19
keeps everything in the system rather than producing waste at the end and uses the outputs as inputs. I like it. I hadn't heard that sort of metaphor before, but that's good.

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 19:26
Yeah. So and in parallel with these third we with this school program, we are running instead to better understand the efficacy of our school program to increase weight literacy among grade five students. So we are not only doing this, the school program will be also running instead to to understand like access, environmental knowledge, attitudes, communication and self reported behavior.

Stuart Carlton 19:56
This is the cool thing about the term. Right is is whenever this is what attraction at all entirely is it's an outreach program. Yes. Which is good, of course. But it's really the science is really integrated. So you're doing studies kind of just across the thing? That's what gave me all the idea to do that. Is it because you were hatched from like a research lab? Right? Or is it? Is that kind of how that evolved? Or did it evolve in some different way?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 20:17
Actually, we created the trash team in 2017. And everything about our team started with the idea of bringing trash to trash will to Toronto, I don't know if you have heard about it. But we were inspired by this. So the trash will is a big technology to collect liter from water in Baltimore. But with a twist, they have like this giant quirk personality with like giant googly eyes. So it's something that really, really, it's super powerful like to see it. So we love the idea of something that could help clean leader collected data and capture the community's attention. So while this is still a long term goal of ours, we don't have a treasurer here. But we changed our plans to to instead, build our outreach group where programming like the trash wheel could be incorporate. So we decided to go around and start to with our outreach and our science that we are have like very strong base on science, or work together.

Renie Miles 21:28
So Raphaela, I wanted to ask you, it's it's really difficult to eliminate single use plastic from your life and plastic is just like everywhere, do you? Do you find that you're ever getting that you ever get overwhelmed by the massiveness of the problem in terms of how we can get to a better place?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 21:48
Yes, I do. I try not to. And what I say every time, especially when we are like working with kids, and we really need to be positive. And we what I always tried to say is, don't don't try to change the world, like your you won't be like zero waste from one day to another. Let's do baby steps, like one step at a time. So when we are talking about reducing waste, let's okay focus on something that you like, go to your weight and does your own home, waste out and see what you have in your garbage being here recycling being what can you eliminate from there and start with one item, and try this for a year. And then when you see that you have a progress start with another one. So I think this way we can like, get some points that we can start to think when when it's due who weighs out, it is super empowering, like you will start to see what you are producing in your home because sometimes we don't, right. So I think that's the way that I'm trying to do it. And I'm trying to do with my daughter, at least we it is it's a overwhelming situation. And Windham really needs to do a lot of things like government needs to take their part in the industry needs to take their part in doing that. It's not only as individual that will change everything, but we can definitely start to help and, and discuss about this.

Ethan Chitty 23:26
So if somebody is interested in doing certain things, but maybe they're not ready to commit to doing the full on waste audit, or their suggestions that you could give the folks as a way to just start to become more cognizant of those things.

Stuart Carlton 23:43
Oh, this is a good question. But hold on. Let's do it this way. I liked this question. But it's not obnoxious enough. So here's what we're gonna do. So we're going to ask for your top three tips for getting started in this. And here's how we're going to do I always screw this up. I don't ask it right. And then it's just awkward and embarrassing. So I'm going to try to explain it right. And then we'll it'll be not awkward and not embarrassing. So I will ask you for your number three tip and it will do a drumroll. And then you'll name the tip. I'll do a symbol and then you'll go into more detailed does that work? Okay, so yeah, trust me and Quinn keep all this in so that the audience knows how stupid I am. So they blame me. Alright, so your first one is

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 24:24
reducing consumption.

Stuart Carlton 24:28
reducing consumption. Yes. Tell me about that.

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 24:30
Because by using less plastics, we are not contributing to need for increase in production. So if we use less plastic, we have less plastic being produced.

Stuart Carlton 24:41
And that's a good point. So if you use less than then there's less trash because even though we talked about that circular economy, there's still waste in that system. Right? No matter what. Yeah, a lot of waste. Yeah. And we don't have a circular economy regardless, it's extraordinary linear. Okay, great. All right. So then your number two tip for keep for cleaning up the Great Lakes is

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 25:02
Improving waste management at home in your local areas in your city, I think we need to improve our the way that we are treating our waste.

Stuart Carlton 25:14
Yeah. So what is What do you mean by improvement? What are some improvements.

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 25:18
So for at home, we can start to like separate and in the correct beans. But if they're recycling the right being put in the plastic, clean your waste, but in the city, we need to make sure that we are not leaving a plastics are waste ended up in the water. So we need to have better beans in the streets, we have to have a better systems of collection. And we have a better system of recycling as well. So it's a lot to do.

Stuart Carlton 25:53
And then your number three tip for cleaning up the Great Lakes is

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 26:00
cleaning up pollution from the environment itself. So after reducing consumption, improve waste management, we still have a lot of waste that ended up in the water. So we need to clean up pollution from the environment. Yeah. And have technology to do that.

Stuart Carlton 26:18
Those are great. Those are three amazing tips. And so a lot of those so I was thinking about that. And it ties into what you're teaching the students and ties into kind of the long term things you're trying to do with the trash team, it seems like so that that is good. Well, Raphael good chairs, this is actually really interesting. And I'm so glad you came on to tell us about this. But that's not actually why we invited you here on teach me about the Great Lakes this week. The reason that we invited you on teaching we're at the Great Lakes is to ask two questions. And those questions are this. Alright, first one, if you could choose to have a great donut for breakfast or a great sandwich for lunch? Would you choose?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 26:55
I would definitely choose a great sandwich for lunch. Yeah, I'm not a sweet person in the morning. So yeah,

Stuart Carlton 27:03
sweet person in the morning. Neither am I until the coffee that I get very sweet. So if I'm in Toronto, I assume you're at the Toronto campus. And so I've spent the morning cleaning up trash. I've been riding jet skis around picking trash up, and I come back and I want a great sandwich. Where should I go in Toronto to get a really great sandwich?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 27:23
Wow, I would say that a lot. A lot of local business here. I cannot pick one I would be wouldn't be fair. I used a lot of sandwich actually, in my place. My husband makes a very good sandwich. So if you were here you can, my husband can make one for you. But we have a beautiful and a lot of cafes here in the city that you can enjoy and visit.

Stuart Carlton 27:49
So when I'm in Toronto, that's what I do. I come by your house for a sandwich and then I'll take a sandwich tour of Toronto. And the second question is this. So is there a special place in the Great Lakes if you'd like to share with our audience, like what's a special place for you and what makes it special in the Great Lakes?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 28:05
So that's a great question actually. Um, I haven't been on lakes yet so I cannot tell about all of them. But I am living now in Toronto and I'm completely in love with Lake Ontario. And I think it's because it's amazing to have like such a huge lake so close to your home. So for me it's like doing like regular things like go for a quick rap bike ride with my family and then stop for swimming. Or just enjoy the beach during the summer or in the winter see that hydrophones all frozen it's like I completely love just like be here in the city. And it's so democratic like everybody can be in the lathe enjoy. You don't need to be like super far go to college or whatever. You just go here, pick a TTC or take a bike walk anywhere there. So for me that's very special.

Stuart Carlton 28:57
That sounds wonderful. It sounds beautiful to see the city up against a big lake like it is beautiful. Yeah, we got to go to Toronto team. I think that's the deal. We got the

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 29:06
Yeah, you totally should go here. It's amazing city.

Stuart Carlton 29:10
People are all fired up about trash right now. They want to learn more about the trash team. Where should they go? To learn more?

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 29:16
Okay, yeah, definitely you can google University of Tirana trash team. We have a website we UFC trash team that ca and we are in social media at UFC trash team like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and then our websites. You can find our information if you want to send me an email contact us personally Yes, you can use our website or social media,

Stuart Carlton 29:41
or Dr. Raphael DocuCentre is the program lead for social sites and educational programs with the U of T trash team and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. Thank you so much for coming on and teaching us all about the Great Lakes.

Dr. Rafaela Gutierrez 29:52
Thank you so much for having me. That was so fun.

Stuart Carlton 30:00
I think it's always fun to hear about how people are dealing with these trash issues like think and the trash team. I, I found our website and reached out. So we have to talk because it's an interesting approach and it's reminiscent what we do with Sea Grant. Right?

Renie Miles 30:13
Yes, connecting education and outreach to research. It's, that's, that's our bailiwick. Yeah,

Stuart Carlton 30:19
yep. It's our bailiwick. That's our daily Bailey, as I call it put

Ethan Chitty 30:25
on the fact that they tie together the research, education and outreach components matches up well to what we try to do around here.

Stuart Carlton 30:33
Yeah, I think that's neat. And I think they're still working on the research and but I can't wait to see the papers that come out of it, I think, I think there'll be a lot of knowledge to build because it's, you know, it's complicated. Let me shoot this is what about our third or fourth episode where we've talked about microplastics you know, directly or indirectly. In fact, I'll put some links to those in the show notes, which you can find at teach me about the Great Lakes Icom slash 40 141 Because this is episode 41. In our very first episode was microplastics. With with Sarah, Zach and Carolyn and then we had our microplastics draft earlier this year. We're always happy to talk plastic because unfortunately, it's it's everywhere, right? Well, unfortunately micro plastics plastic itself, it's more complicated than that. Teach me about the Great Lakes is brought to you by the fine people Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, we encourage you to check out the great work that we do at AI sea grant.org and at i l i n Sea Grant on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. I think we're doing more on our Insta lately, but I'm not positive. I stopped Instagramming once Facebook bottom, I'll be honest, but I think we're doing one or Insta anyway. Teaching about the Great Lakes is produced by hope charters, Carolyn Foley Meghan Gunn, and really miles Ethan Chitty is our associate producer and our fixer. Our super fun podcast artwork is by Joel Davenport. Joe, welcome back. This show is edited by the awesome Quinn Rose, who gave plenty of work through this week. And I encourage you to check her out at aspiring robot.com. If you have a question or comment about the show, send us an email, teach me about the great lakes@gmail.com or leave a message on our hotline at 765496 IS G that's 4474. And they did not charge us for that line. You can follow the show on Twitter at Teach Great Lakes. And I encourage you to do that and follow everybody that we follow because it is an interesting feed at this point. And thanks for listening, of course, and keep grading those legs

I found out we got this digital piano for Christmas for the kids, you know, quote unquote, for the kids, and I found out that it also works as like a MIDI interface. And so I and then I got this new iPad for work. And I've been using it too. Anyway, I've been having a lot of fun. So we're recording all new stuff. All new songs, even stupid or them before the kids get to play with it at all. Oh, they did. But their interest is not as high as mine. And they're not awake when the nice thing about the digital. I wanted a real piano I still do but it doesn't have a volume button. This thing and it's got weighted keys, which is nice. So it's kind of like playing a piano right. But it it it has a volume so I can play it when I wake up at like 430 and not wake everybody up. Sweet. Sweet. I heard

Ethan Chitty 33:23
that very subtle air quotes around for work. Yeah.

Stuart Carlton 33:27
No, I didn't get it for work. But the thing is, this is work. Man. I'm getting paid to be here. This isn't. I don't do this on steward time. This is this is critical outreach. So sorry, I couldn't get your paperwork done. Ethan. I had to record MIDI sounds to make a stupid transitional music for teaching about the Great Lakes. But the thing is, if that's what the taxpayer demands, that's what I'm going to do. SharePoint,

Renie Miles 33:49
it's what the audience wants. Yep.

Stuart Carlton 33:52
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what they want. No, no, to be clear, to be clear. All of the stupidity I do on my time. But the recording I do on company time, but the stupidity is what? You gotta have something life is hard, right? You gotta have a hook.

Renie Miles 34:07
Yeah, you could do some stupidity on work time, especially if it you know, if it's, it's all about the work anyway.

Stuart Carlton 34:15
There we go. We're gonna have some fun, right? That's actually with this podcast. That's something we've talked about a lot is because it is a little different. I think that a lot of, you know, the, like, what is that? What is the Purdue one? Welcome to Purdue or whatever. Like I said, Purdue life at Purdue at the guy who Yeah, and it's just very pro but very scripted, right. And, or whatever, and it's fine, and it features all this stuff. And it's like, everything that we're not and that's that's okay, but, but what's nice about this is it you gotta have something creative and something fun at work. And so if it's not creative and fun, minute, then it's drudgery. And now who wants to totally agree