National Science Foundation

These investigators, along with graduate and undergraduate students, are installing 83 broadband seismic stations from the EarthScope Flexible Array pool to explore the deep structure of the Mid-Continent Rift System (MCRS). The MCRS is the fossil remnant of an extensive rifting event that failed to split North America during the Middle-Proterozoic era. This event left a large volume of dense basalts and associated strong geophysical anomalies.

0949962 Ito This collaborative grant between the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities and Duluth (EAR-0949285) campuses supports renewed support of operations and laboratory improvements at LacCore, a national multi-user lacustrine core archival and analysis facility. LacCore was previously supported under EAR-0652769.

0949962 Ito This collaborative grant between the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities and Duluth (EAR-0949285) campuses supports renewed support of operations and laboratory improvements at LacCore, a national multi-user lacustrine core archival and analysis facility. LacCore was previously supported under EAR-0652769.

Abstract: Using the STEM Dimensions of Bioenergy Sustainability to Bring Leading-edge Graduate Research to K-12 Learning Settings. The intellectual focus of this new GK-12 project at the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) is on the ecological dimensions of bioenergy sustainability.

Earth Systems Science (40) Despite widespread recognition that inquiry-learning improves education in STEM disciplines, too few undergraduate science programs include authentic research experiences for students in their first two years. The goal of the First-Year Research in Earth Sciences (FYRES) project is to develop and implement a geoscience course in which first-semester students at Calvin College learn science through engagement in undergraduate research experiences focused on Lake Michigan coastal dunes.

Chemistry (12) Stewardship of the watershed and sustainability of natural resources requires training of students in the science of Environmental Chemistry. This project incorporates authentic research-based laboratory experiences that highlight environmental testing, watershed sustainability, and current research topics into undergraduate chemistry courses.

Orography has a dramatic influence on lake-effect snowstorms, not only in regions with major mountain barriers such as the Great Salt Lake Basin of northern Utah, but also in the eastern United States and Canada where more modest relief is found around the Great Lakes. For example, over the Tug Hill Plateau of northern New York, which lies downstream of Lake Ontario, annual snowfall increases 25-50 mm for every 100 m rise in elevation and storm-total accumulations have reached 360 cm in extreme lake-effect events.

Leadership for Educators: Academy for Driving Economic Revitalization in Science (LEADERS) is a mathematics and science partnership that gathers and merges the expertise of four essential entities in the economic revitalization of the Great Lakes Region - K-12 school districts, higher education, the renewable energy industry, and informal science education sites.