New York Sea Grant, in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), has announced $400,000 in grant funding now available for Great Lakes ecosystem-based management projects in support of New York’s Great Lakes Action Agenda. Awards of up to $50,000 per project will be available from the New York Great Lakes Basin Small Grants Program. [Read more…] about $400k Available in Grants for Great Lakes Basin Projects
New York Sea Grant
Free Environmental Teaching Resources Available
New York Sea Grant is providing teachers with new educational resources for the coming school year. The resources include a compendium of environmentally themed reading lists for pre-K to 12th graders, a curriculum connecting Underground Railroad history with the Great Lakes environment, and the recently-released Lake Sturgeon Intermediate Curriculum with supplemental hands-on teaching tools. [Read more…] about Free Environmental Teaching Resources Available
Grants Available For Great Lakes Youth Projects
New York Sea Grant, in partnership with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), has announced funding is now available for projects that engage youth under the age of 21 and address local watershed challenges and New York’s Great Lakes Action Agenda priorities.
A total of $200,000, up to $25,000 per project, in New York Great Lakes Basin Small Grants is expected to be awarded. [Read more…] about Grants Available For Great Lakes Youth Projects
New York Sea Grant Names Interim Director
The New York Sea Grant (NYSG) Board of Governors and Stony Brook University Provost Michael Bernstein have approved the appointment of Katherine Bunting-Howarth, Ph.D., J.D., as Interim Director of the NYSG Institute.
Bunting-Howarth has served as an Associate Director of New York Sea Grant since 2011; she will continue as Assistant Director of Cornell University Cooperative Extension, where NYSG maintains an office. [Read more…] about New York Sea Grant Names Interim Director
Rev War: USS Philadelphia Gunboat Being Rebuilt in A Day
2017 New York State Fair opening day visitors will be able to see a replica of the gunboat USS Philadelphia that carried General Benedict Arnold and his Continental Army troops in 1776 during the Revolutionary War rebuilt in just one day, Wednesday, August 23.
Erich Tichonuk, co-executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, VT, will lead the assembly of the replica of the oldest surviving American fighting naval vessel. The original Philadelphia was discovered in Lake Champlain in 1935 and is now housed at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. [Read more…] about Rev War: USS Philadelphia Gunboat Being Rebuilt in A Day
Traveling NY Shipwrecks Exhibit In Oswego
The Great Shipwrecks of NY’s Great Lakes is in Oswego, NY, at the Tyler Art Gallery in Penfield Hall Library at SUNY Oswego. The exhibit was developed for the 2014 Great New York State Fair and was updated for this installation. It will be on display through January 22, 2015.
The exhibit includes interpretive panels highlighting shipwrecks in Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Champlain, the Finger Lakes, Lake George and the St. Lawrence River; videos; and a newly-built replica of the ‘turtle ship’ Radeau that sunk in Lake George. Freshwater science technology components including a remotely-operated underwater vehicle and a Great Lakes Research Consortium in-water sensing buoy. [Read more…] about Traveling NY Shipwrecks Exhibit In Oswego
Great Lakes Underwater Event Adds Speakers
New York Sea Grant, the Oswego Maritime Foundation, and the Great Lakes Seaway Trail have added to the March 6 Great Lakes Underwater conference program at SUNY Oswego. The added presentations for the 9am to 3pm event at the SUNY Oswego Campus Center in Oswego, NY, include:
· Dr. Henry Spang and “Building the OMF Ontario – “a floating maritime classroom”
· Skip Couch and the “Lost Fleet of the 1000 Islands,”
· James Sears and four New York State Divers Association “Two-Tank Tips,” and
· Brian Prince of S.O.S. – the Save Ontario Shipwrecks program preserving Ontario Canada’s maritime heritage.
Oswego Maritime Foundation (OMF) Director of Education through Involvement Dr. Henry Spang will talk about the volunteer effort that is completing the construction of the OMF Ontario. Spang says, “The OMF Ontario will be dedicated to public service and is designed to educate the public about our Great Lakes maritime history, heritage, resources and ecology by hands-on involvement in the experience of sailing this fabulous re-creation from our sailing era.”
Spang says the 85-foot-long schooner will be the only ship of its kind of US registry on Lake Ontario when shipboard classes begin in two years. The last schooner built in Oswego, NY, launched 131 years ago.
Raymond I. “Skip” Couch’s ancestors include Connecticut shipbuilders that settled in Clayton, NY, and a Great Lakes Seaway Trail Rock Island Lighthouse keeper. A Clayton Diving Club founding member, Couch participated in an underwater survey for iron cannons believed abandoned by the British before the War of 1812 near Carleton Island in 2009. Couch, co-author of the Diver’s Guide to the Upper St. Lawrence River, says, “At Great Lakes Underwater, divers and maritime history buffs will hear fascinating details about the more than three dozen ships stranded or lost to natural disaster or human error in the Narrows of the Thousand Islands.”
James Sears of the New York State Divers Association will share four destinations where divers can easily dive on two different shipwrecks. Two of the sites are in the St. Lawrence River with one each in Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain.
The keynote presentation of the 2010 Great Lakes Underwater is deep wreck explorer Jim Kennard’s presentation on the “Discovery of the HMS Ontario,” a British warship that sank in Lake Ontario in 1780 during the American Revolution. Kennard, who might easily be called the “Great Lakes Seaway Trail’s Jacques Cousteau,” will share a video and the exciting story of how he and diving partner Dan Scoville located this “Holy Grail” of diving. Kennard’s 200-plus discoveries have been featured in such publications as National Geographic and Sea Technology.
Brian Prince, president of S.O.S. – Save Ontario Shipwrecks, will highlight Canadian efforts to preserve Ontario’s shipwrecks and maritime heritage. The nonprofit organization conduct underwater archaeology and side scan surveys, collects oral histories, maintains an historical archives, offers diver training, and installs maritime-theme interpretive signage.
New York Sea Grant Coastal Recreation and Tourism Specialist and conference co-organizer Dave White, says, “Great Lakes Underwater provides divers and non-divers who enjoy maritime heritage with a fabulous day of discoveries with speakers who offer an inside look at our history and fascinating details of shipwrecks, the underwater landscape, and the technology now used to explore the underwater landscape.”
Great Lakes Underwater 2010 will be held in the high-tech SUNY Oswego Campus Center Auditorium. Registration for Great Lakes Underwater is $25 ($20 for students) payable to Cornell University and includes the program, buffet lunch, and refreshments. For more information, contact New York Sea Grant, SUNY Oswego, Oswego, NY 13126, 315-312-3042, www.oswegomaritime.org/glu.html.
Photo: Oswego Maritime Foundation’s Ontario undertest sail.