The inaugural class of Lakehead University undergraduate students taking Aquatic and Experimental Limnology at the IISD Experimental Lakes Area got an unexpected lesson in their first week of study, with less-than-ideal weather causing various challenges on the water. The thing about fieldwork, however, is that it’s like show business—unless you’re facing exceptional circumstances, “the show must go on.” From that perspective, the students definitely got the full range of field experience. But with exceptional circumstances come exceptional teaching opportunities; while the weather became much more pleasant in the second week, the poor weather at the beginning of the course provided something that can be difficult to demonstrate effectively in the lab or in lecture: a seiche.

 

When wind blows over a surface of water, it tends to move that water in the direction of the wind. When that happens in a stratified lake (one that is deep enough to set up a temperature gradient, which is to say, warm water on top, cold water below), the warm water piles up on the downwind side, pushing the cold water deeper. On the upwind side, the cold water becomes shallower. This is a standing wave, or “seiche” as it is known in limnology.

 

After a few warm cups of coffee to remove the chill of being on the lake all morning, we put all our data from the field together. Just as we had discussed in lecture earlier that day, we observed the seiche on the lakes we were sampling: the warm water was deeper downwind, and shallower water was upwind. Minds blown.

 

The students didn’t just look at a figure from a textbook to learn this concept, or leave it to their professor (however engaging) to tell them about it. They used the instruments themselves to collect the data and record the values in their fieldbooks. They entered and analyzed the data to make the discovery on their own. It is this hands-on discovery that you cannot fully capture in lectures, and it is very difficult to simulate in a lab (though it is possible, with some practice).

 

In addition to the hands-on learning opportunities, at IISD Experimental Lakes Area, you never know who is going to show up. Often, we have high profile visitors from the world of limnology, but this time, quite unexpectedly, our first week of the course ended with a visit from Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. Premier Wynne spoke one-on-one with many of the students about the projects they would be working on the next week (many of which were conceived in the hours before she arrived).

 

The students rounded out the field course by carrying out a wide variety of interesting and creative research projects, ranging from a mark-recapture study of fish in a lake where their prey had disappeared, to studying the effects of nanosilver on sediment bacterial communities and leaf-pack colonization. Another student investigated changes in the soil horizons at sites where upland reservoirs once existed. The students presented their preliminary results on the final day of the course and will be working on their final reports over the next month. The level of dedication that the students poured into these projects was truly astounding: getting up at 4:30 am to retrieve leech traps or staying up until 3:00 am plating agar, all in the name of scientific discovery. This level of investment and immersion in the scientific process is challenging to reproduce in traditional settings, which is what makes field courses like the one that IISD-ELA offers through Lakehead University so incredibly valuable.

 

I can’t wait till we do it all again next year.

 

The course “Experimental Limnology and Aquatic Ecology” is offered through the Ontario Universities Program in Field Biology. For additional details, please visit http://www.oupfb.ca/.