Educating the Next Generation of Lake Stewards with Emily Anderson

In this episode of The Lake Doctor Podcast, Dr. Nate Bosch gets a jump scare from guest Emily Anderson, Education Coordinator at the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams. Emily shares her journey from Grace College student to full-time educator and explains how hands-on experiences spark lifelong water literacy in K-12 students.

From field trips exploring wetlands and aquariums to sensory boxes, vocab exercises, and a virtual aquarium that brings student creations to life, this episode demonstrates why experiential learning creates lasting connections to local lakes and streams. Emily highlights the joy of seeing kindergartners discover tadpoles and crayfish, the importance of outdoor time, and how these programs build curiosity and stewardship in the next generation.

Join us for a fun and inspiring discussion packed with practical ideas for parents and teachers who want to get kids outside and engaged with nature. Learn how the Lilly Center is shaping future lake stewards through engaging, memorable education.

Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.

Have a question we could answer on the podcast? Send an email to lakes@grace.edu or submit a comment below.

Help us improve the podcast by filling out this short survey: https://forms.gle/MzGSXHcnkEQC8T74A.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Challenge

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Lake Doctor Podcast. This is season three, episode two. I'm Susie Light, and with me is Dr. Nate Bosch, my favorite Lake nerd.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

What are we going to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Well, I'm excited because today we have one of our Lily Senner staff members, Emily Anderson. She's our education coordinator. And we're going to talk about the importance of hands-on education and even try some educational activities ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

And one of the hands-on activities that Emily does with students that come here during field trips, Dr. Nate is going to do, and you have got to watch the surprise he has. It is really funny. Please make sure you share this, like it, comment, especially comment about Nate's reaction to the hands-on activity. It's hysterical. The doctor is in.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

She is. Former students. Former students. Let's be technical about that.

Emily’s Role And Student Programs

SPEAKER_00 1:30

That's right. But now she's full-time at the Lily Center.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Tell us, Emily, what is your job at the Lily Center?

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yes, I'm one of our education coordinators. I get to help execute and facilitate all of our K through 12 programming here at the Lily Center, which involves field trips during the school year and lots of fun education programs during the summer as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

So a field trip when students maybe in first grade up to high school?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Typically we have kindergarten through sixth grade visit us during the school year, but we love having our older students visit as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And the students come from all over Casciasco County?

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Yes, all over Casciasco County. We got over 10 different elementary schools and a couple private schools, some scout groups, some homeschool families in our doors this past school year. We typically see them three times a week during the school year.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And where you're located at the Lily Center, we were laughing like we've invaded your space, haven't we?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

You kind of have to a degree.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

So for the podcast recording your space.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yes, we're it this is episode two, season three, new set design. I love it. And Emily, thanks for sharing your space. We're an invasive species.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Oh no, you're just an exotic species today. Oh, okay. I'll take that. We'll be exotic. We like to measure our reception in the community by saying connections. So this past school year, uh the 2025 to 2026 school year, we made over 10,000 student connections, and that's kindergarten, well, preschool, honestly, all the way to high school.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

That is amazing. Yes. And that's what from September until May?

SPEAKER_02 3:07

August until into June. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And we do do some preschool programs in the summertime, right? With one of our uh preschool partners.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

We do. I have the scar, my pinky to prove it right now. We partner with Presby Preschool to take about 20 other preschool students who are attending nature camp, and we fit them into teeny tiny preschool sized waiters.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

They are the cutest chest waiters ever.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

So cute. It's a really pretty, like teal color, and they are a little nervous and apprehensive unless they're a second year. And we welcome them uh to Wosserin Park and they get into Pike Lake and explore to see all that they can find with dip nets. They have little shovels, some magnifiers. We let them just kind of go wild, but not too wild, as my fingers.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, scar, like waiters.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Uh so I had a very enthusiastic little one who um her boots were a little too big for her feet, even though they were the smallest size, and she was tripping, and in my effort to catch her, um my poor biggie got scraped. So but she's a producer. Yeah, she didn't die.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Obviously. Thank goodness, thank goodness. So, how did

From Zoo Volunteer To Lily Center

SPEAKER_01 4:20

you start your journey? And um tell us about how did you come to Grace College and how did you end up here?

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yeah, I'm the oldest of six, so I definitely grew up with a lot of opportunities to be uh an educator, aka I was really a bossy older sister, and I've always enjoyed working with kids. It was part of that nurturing growing up and being the eldest sister, and my parents were super awesome and encouraged us to spend a lot of time outside. Uh, we were never locked outside, but we were most definitely encouraged to go be outside so that mom could take a breather. Um, we spent a lot of time camping, being such a large family. It was much more easier and more feasible to just go on a camping trip in September as our family vacation instead of maybe a cruise in the middle of July. So we spent a lot of time out in nature. My family is very invested into different scout groups. Um, and so I have grown up spending recreation outside. Um, and there was a couple distinctive moments as a teenager that really instilled a personal passion for talking about the outdoors with students. Um, the earliest that I can remember was probably in fourth or fifth grade. My family was living in Cincinnati, Ohio at the time, and we visited the Cincinnati Zoo, which is such a large zoo. I haven't been in a while, but I was blown away with all the with all of the creatures, and then I turned around and I saw teenagers who to fourth or fifth grade me, they were just a year or two older than me, but they were herding around these large um penguins, like chin strap penguins. And I turned to my mom and I was like, Mom, I I want to do that, can I do that? Like, who doesn't want to shepherd penguins around a zoo? And she was very kind. She was like, Okay, well, we'll do our research when we get home, we'll see. Lo and behold, I was much too young to be a zoo teen at the Cincinnati Zoo. But flash forward in high school, we were living in Evansville, Indiana, and I volunteered for five summers at the Evansville Massacre Park Zoo in Botanical Gardens and did a lot of really fun um outreach education through that uh volunteer opportunity. We worked both with adults and visitors who came to the zoo talking about a wide variety of conservation topics. Um but our primary goal, uh primary job at the zoo as volunteers was to work with their students who were uh attending a day camp five days out of the week. And um yeah, we just got to walk around with the kids, help them with their activities, answer any of their questions. So I have never actually shepherd around penguins, but I have shepherded around little kids, rescued water bottles, had to go tell zookeepers that there was a water bottle in an enclosure or two, and that really encouraged my love for being outside and appreciating all different kinds of creatures, all the way from rolly-polys to huge giraffes. Um so as I approached college, I was thinking and praying about what I would want to do, and I really, really enjoyed the sciences, and I thought that being a science teacher would be really fun. So I started exploring different um smaller universities across the Midwest, and Grace had been recommended by some family members who were alumni, and so I applied to Grace, I applied to a couple other different universities, um, entered Grace's presidential scholarship opportunities that they have every school year, and God was just super generous, and I was awarded one of those scholarships, making Grace the most feasible, and Grace offered a secondary science education degree at the time. Um, and so that was what I enrolled in. Um very, very excited. Lo and behold, my one of the very first classes I took as a freshman was your not your aquatic, your general biology, general ecology class. Jeez Louise. Um, general ecology class, and I loved it so much. I'm sure you've heard many amazing stories about it from the coursework to the labs. I found it so engaging and fun. And hands-on. So hands-on. We were in waders. I had never been in waiters prior to that. Um, I didn't really grow up around lakes. Uh, we had lots of woods and streams around us, but lakes were this whole new thing um to get to explore and just have fun exploring. I loved the way the class was taught, and I remember feeling really sad that it was coming to an end, and I was looking at my courses for the rest of my time at college, and I was just feeling a little bummed out that that was my last super fun science class. So I started reaching out to some of the advisors on campus. Um, I talked to Dr. Jeff Renssel, I talked to Denise Terry in our Career Connections Center asking what other opportunities there might be, what other careers could be involved with science and education that maybe wasn't the traditional um middle school, high school science teacher. I didn't want to feel so constrained to one specific career. And they recommended considering switching to an environmental science degree, but then keeping maybe a psychology or an education or a business minor and just having a little bit more flexibility. They encouraged me to explore different internships to affirm or to reroute that choice. And so February of my freshman year, I switched my degree from secondary science education to environmental science, and then I um pursued an education minor, and I've never regretted it since. I loved getting to dive into education, especially children's psychology, adult psychology, which the education minor allowed for. Um, but then I got to take so many more awesome science classes like aquatic ecology, um, astronomy. I took some plant biology, really enjoyed that. And so that landed me um more skills. Um, I had started working at the Lily Center as a freshman, as an intern. Um I thought that this was such a cool opportunity uh for a student that was very similar to what I had done at the zoo. So I thought, well, why not? I think I can do it. I'll just I'll just do it and see what happens. Quickly fell in love with it. I loved the format, I loved the lessons we taught, um, thought the stack was awesome. So I stuck with that. And three and a half years later, I graduated and had been told that there might be an opportunity, and I applied the rest of history, I

Why Hands-On Learning Works

SPEAKER_02 11:22

guess.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

So throughout your whole educational process, you personally have experienced hands-on learning. Yes. And that was transformative in your choice for college um degree.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

And now how important is it for the students that are coming to you as the education coordinator here? How important is that hands-on learning?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

I believe it is so important to be able to communicate the important information in a most meaningful way. And often the hands-on method is what's going to be most memorable and what will most connect the students to the topic. Because I could have sixth graders sitting in front of me and I could tell them that lakes are stratified and that there's temperature differences, I could tell them there's a thermocline, a hypo limin. But it's not really gonna stick until they do the science experiment and actually see the chemistry in motion and see the separation of the water layers, which, of course, that example can be applied to any other ecological concept.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

So, Emily, you brought today an example of one of the hands-on uh projects you have for students. Yes. Tell us about what this is.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

I did. So, in front of you guys, beforehand, you guys each picked out your favorite aquatic creature to color. Now, I didn't give you a million options, so unfortunately, you don't have a snake in front of you.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

But I would not have picked the snake. I think we shouldn't make the snake.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

These coloring pages are one of our favorite hands-on tools to use with our kindergarten through third grade students. So, here in our learning lab during the school year, um, we love talking to the kids about fish because fish are such prominent creatures in our local lakes. So, we are gonna color these coloring pages to the best of our ability, and we will see what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

I'm a really good color should be.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Do you think that there's a reason she gave us a kindergarten level project?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

I'm trying not to read into that.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

And if you want to challenge yourselves, we could go to the second grade level. At second grade, I we spend time with the students observing all of our awesome aquariums in the lobby, and we talk about distinguish um, we talk about different fish features, and then we encourage the kids to replicate that, thinking about camouflage and how they can best create camouflaged critters.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

So we're trying to do camouflage coloring right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yes, not me. I'm doing a psychedelic um unk and seat.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Well, so if it's in a psychedelic environment, then that might work.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay, mate?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Um, the hands-on project that we're doing is one of the things that's a key feature of this learning lab.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Could can you color and tell us about it? Some features?

SPEAKER_00 14:12

So I will try.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Please try.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

I'll put my marker down. I can't do more than one thing at a time. Um, yeah, so we're in the learning lab right now, and when we designed this space, we did things like pull uh we have um electric boxes which pull down from the ceiling, we have a drain in the floor, uh hard floor, so that if things get really wet or dirty in here, if we need to put uh microscopes out on tables, uh there is uh a lot of cabinetry with different hands-on sorts of uh equipment and and supplies we can pull out. And so just outside the door of our learning lab is our lobby space with lots of aquariums, so there's great educational opportunity as well. We built this educational space with growth in mind, and so we when we have larger groups come, we have a circular classroom over here which we can uh overflow into even our loading dock down the hall. We had to convert into another teaching space. Uh we have our aquarium lab, which which has all of our critters that are ambassadors going out to the community to learn about our lakes and our streams. And then we built research spaces up above us. We have a couple research labs, one that we're using currently, another that we can move into collaboration space, like our conference room and our staff and student collaboration areas back behind us here. So our space really helps reflect those key areas of research, education, and collaboration that we work with here at the Lily

Building A Lab For Messy Science

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Center.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

So this sounds like a really intensive, big project that you underwent. Uh and and I can imagine that this was something that many donors wanted to see you uh the Lily Center accomplish. Yeah. How did that how did that work?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

That was actually a really fun part of my job because with this dreaming of this new space, I was able to express those plans and those dreams with some of uh with some of our supporters, and they jumped on board really quick. They saw the vision of what we were trying to accomplish. And so when you walk around our spaces now, you'll see uh signs from different donors that donated to make those spaces possible. And as I walk around, I have personal relationships with each of those people, and it's kind of fun to like, oh yeah, this person, you know, loves this sort of thing that we do, and so they were excited to give towards that, or this person really wanted to inspire this, and so it's it's fun to walk around and even when you walk into the front doors, your your entryway is lined with native plants, yes, and that was a passion of of a family, yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Um, and it was so important for you to be able to practice what you preach, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah, yeah. I remember talking to uh the Dick and Lisa Teets family about about uh native planting, and they wanted other people to be able to learn from it, so we put some signage out there as well with the different types of plants, and uh yeah, that's a great example for where our supporters uh have have have their own things they're passionate about, and when that overlaps some of the fun things that we have a vision for and we want to accomplish, then a gift is made and they're super excited about it, we're super excited about it, and uh and we can move forward with a really good impact.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

And as we're talking, in what do you see in the future in the way of how the learning lab will evolve and change? How does it fit into the Lake Dr. RX?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, so as part of Lake Rx, and just to remind our listeners and viewers, that's looking ahead towards building prescriptions, individualized prescriptions for our lakes, with how to fix the problems that we've identified through our research and educational experience with those water bodies. And so water literacy, and we'll talk about that here in this episode, that's one of those solutions that we see for the problems in our lakes. And so as we continue to lean into water literacy for our community, these spaces become even more important and a key feature of Lake Rx as we go

Water Literacy And Lake Rx Goals

SPEAKER_00 18:53

forward.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

So, Emily, part of your work is helping young people in our uh community understand water literacy. What do you see as a challenge for that?

SPEAKER_02 19:05

I think the biggest challenge to that sometimes can be um students' own perceptions of the aquatic ecosystems. Way too often I hear apprehensive students, especially during our outdoor hikes. Um, I may or may not have them told, ew, nature's gross, or when can we go home? Um but I love getting to take them outside and to challenge their perception of what actually is in that water, and it's not just gross, dirty water, but it's a whole ecosystem of living creatures and systems that are working in harmony to support the ecosystem as a whole. Sometimes other challenges can just be misconceptions about the lakes. Um, students might not be aware of all of the free recreation opportunities that they do have, especially here in Casyasco County. We have a lot of public beaches and uh opportunities for students to get involved. Um, they don't have to have a lake house in order to really enjoy and appreciate our license dreams.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Good place to go fishing and swimming, sailing. Yes, and even running a kayak on Winona Lake is possible, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:21

It is what Nona Lake, Center Lake, I believe as well, also has a lot of rental opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Um, there's actually kiosks that you can get an app on your phone and you can rent those for a certain period of time.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

It's a lot of fun. It is, and thank you for thank you for your work on creating water literate students, uh, even though they may say, ooh, those those lessons are gonna stick with them. So goal. Tell us about uh tell us about an interesting thing we have on the table that looks like a really nice award.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yes, so the Lily Center has been so honored to be the winner of the Environmental Education and Outreach Award from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, both in 2019 and in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

So, Nate, I think you've got the 2025 award down there.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

I do, I'm not quite done calling it.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

I can hold it. There we go. So, you know, isn't that beautiful? This is something you guys really ought to be extremely like shouting from the mountaintops. Um proud of this uh because it is a governor's award, statewide recognition for the curriculum that you've created. Yeah, correct? All right, tell us about what does curriculum mean and how do you help educators in our community with what you've created in Noyo curriculum?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah, when you say curriculum, I just think of the legacy of the educators who have gone. Before myself. We've had a really, really awesome team of educators at the Lily Center since 2007. So a lot of the materials that we are using are inspired by the DNRs Project Wet or Project Learning Tree. We have a lot of wisdom and expertise from former teachers, former educators who either have volunteered or worked for us. And then we have some really creative interns who also come up with some super fun activities and games. That's a really fun part of the job is getting to see the next generation of young professionals and their enthusiasm for kids getting outside.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

And that curriculum improves over time.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Right? So as we notice something, maybe we'll get some feedback from a teacher or from one of our college student interns. Hey, what about if we try this? Or maybe if we change it a little bit to this, and then we can make those improvements and they just get better and better.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Yes, we seek to have all of our curriculum align with the Indiana Department of Education's state standards. So that's part of the summer refresh that we get to do every year. We go through and make sure everything is up to date and is fresh with the really helpful feedback we've gotten from, like you said, teachers, our interns, volunteers, our director of education. All of it is super

Curriculum Wins And Kid Quotes

SPEAKER_02 23:24

helpful.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

So speaking of feedback, you brought some interesting quotes with you.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

I did bring some quotes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Would you share with the reaction students had to coming here?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yes. One of my favorite reactions to even being in the building comes from a first grader, and we were talking about role-playing as scientists. It was actually in this room in our learning lab. And I wanted to prepare them to be scientists before they went out and looked at our aquariums. So I was telling them that scientists make observations. Observations aren't always our feelings or our opinions. And we know we're making an observation when we start with, I noticed that. And then we share something our senses are telling us. And I had been explaining this and using my own senses, like I noticed that you're wearing a black polo this afternoon. And this little first grader, um, he didn't raise his hand, he was just so eager. He went, I noticed that this place is awesome. Uh-huh. So he was very, very kind. Other kids um have lots of opinions and lots of interesting observations, especially when hiking. I once had a third grader go, look, Miss Emily, it's a blue pigeon. I fear he was pointing at a blue heron. Oh, but he he really learned that day. Um, the kids are really sweet in their opinions of us as well. I've been asked, are you unprofessional at hiking?

unknown 24:52

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

To which I say yes. Until you line up a Colorado 14er. No, not. Um they I love seeing kids try to make connections from what they already know. So I've had a third grader ask me before, Miss Emily, is algae just nature slime? So that was a great.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Oh God, did you answer to that?

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Well, I got to answer by saying how it looked kind of slimy, but really, depending on what kind of algae it was, it might not be connected the way that slime is as a polymer. It might just look like it's connected. But some slime, like the green filamentous algae, that does look very slimy, especially on the surface. A lot of the time, though, they actually see duckweed at our wetland. So we then talked about the difference between algae and duckweed. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

So you used an interesting word. I can't remember where it is right now. So vocabulary is really important in the work that you're doing with students. And I think you might have brought a vocabulary test for us today.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

I did.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

But this is a higher level, I've heard Nate. Yes. It's not kindergarten level. Okay. Okay. It might be like fifth grade level.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah, are you guys familiar with the game Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I have just a couple of vocab words that we use with our fifth grade students, both in-house and outside. So this first word, I have pretty high expectations based off of some of our podcast episodes. But what is a wetland?

SPEAKER_01 26:25

It is a filter.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

It does filter, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Do you have a better?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

I would say it as the name would suggest, it's kind of a transitional ecosystem between terrestrial land and then also water. It is gonna have water and so it's gonna be wet. We talk about sponges and kidneys. I'll just stop right there because I'm gonna go into a whole nother episode. Oh, you're all good.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Okay, you got that one. If you ask fifth graders, they'll tell you it's where Shrek lives. But then we correct them and we say that it is an area of land that is saturated with water. And then we really like to focus on three functions that you guys collectively mentioned. It um is a water filter, like you said, Susie. It provides flood and erosion control by soaking up that water, and then it also sustains life and furnishes food and habitat for so many different plants and animals. I would give you guys an increase for that.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Is she not an enthusiastic instructor? You know, you start education. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Okay, next, the next word. It's another W word. What is the watershed?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Ah, it's the way the water flows off the land into larger pools of water.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah, you're getting us in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Is there more?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I would say it is very specifically the boundary uh by which all the water that that falls within that boundary and ends up at a certain point on the landscape.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

That was very much the collegiate answer, but yes, Susie was very close with our fifth grade answer. It's an area of land, kind of like a funnel, and it collects all of that runoff that's running off the land into that common body of water, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

You know, we're we're on a continental divide.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yes, we are.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

So there are areas, depending on which way the wind blows, what happens to the water when it's raining?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Right. Whether that goes north up into the Great Lakes and out into North Atlantic, or whether it goes south into the Tipeee River, up the Mississippi, into the Gulf.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Fine facts. Okay. Those were two vocab words that we teach when we're outside hiking with our fifth graders. But when we're inside in the learning lab, like Dr. Bosch mentioned earlier, we'll bring down those extension cords and set them up with student-sized microscopes, and we talk about plankton. Oftentimes their perception of plankton is solely fueled by Spongebob. So we teach them what plankton actually is and the two different types of plankton. Can you guys tell me what zooplankton is?

SPEAKER_01 29:06

So the fifth grade me would have said that's what whales eat. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah. So I break I always like to break apart words, and so I think of plankton, which literally means wanderer, and then zoo, which refers to animal. So it's the tiniest little animals that live in our flakes.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Good job, you guys. That's right. They are microscopic organisms that live in the water. They're plankton, so they drift and they can't swim against the water curtain cur wow, water current. That's right. And sometimes they're that immature stage of even larger plants, or not even plants, larger insects and animals.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Good. Alright, last one. Are you guys ready for it? Yes. So we just talked about zooplankton. How about phytoplankton?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

So, okay, I'm gonna take a lesson from you. I'm gonna break down that word. Phyto must mean related to sunlight, right? Plankton's small. So is it something that is dependent on sunlight to grow?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, so another word for algae, and it's the tiniest little photosynthesizing organism organisms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

The fifth grade me didn't know that word.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

You're all good. We said we tell our students that they are microscopic organisms that live in water and create their own chemical energy through photosynthesis.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Okay, now define photosynthesis for our listeners.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and plant like organisms take the sun's light and carbon dioxide and turn it into a form of glucose and water and oxygen.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Man, that was on an exam back in general. It was dude. You still remember that chemical form?

SPEAKER_02 30:53

I did. I drew it out. I think I got a whole point.

Wetland And Plankton Vocabulary Game

SPEAKER_01 30:56

So the educational programs that you have here for students, you're hoping have a lifelong incast on them. What are what are your favorite things to do with kiddos?

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Oh, my favorite things. I I ask this all the time to my interns, and I'm like, okay, guys, what was your favorite grade that you had this week? And we really can't land on a favorite grade. We love everybody from the sixth graders to the kindergartners. They all have their strengths and their weaknesses. I personally love getting kids outside. So my favorite programs really are our outdoor hikes. I just love giving kids the space and the time to get outside and to ask any questions they have about those ecosystems and hopefully build that empathy and passion to just spend more time outside. They don't have to memorize every tree that we have along the trail, but I want them to be curious and to appreciate what they have in their own backyard. But with our kindergartners, I have a lot of fun because kindergartners might spend their time coloring as we did earlier, and you guys will have to stay tuned to see how those turn out. Or they get to be hands-on and meet some of our ambassador animals, and then they wrap up their day by playing a really fun game as they learn about the things living in a lake habitat.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Ah, and how do they learn about those things living in the lake habitat?

SPEAKER_02 32:21

What are they hands-on? It is hands-on, and I actually brought an adult-sized version of it for us today. Typically,

Sensory Box Lake Habitat Surprise

SPEAKER_02 32:28

we have much smaller uh sensory boxes, but for you guys, I have a larger box, and we're gonna see if Dr. Bosch can guess what lake objects he's feeling in the box today.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

There's not gonna be any snakes, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Okay. If there's a snake, I'm going to scream and run off the set.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

I'm getting fired. Okay, let's get the sensory box out. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Is that what we have over here next to us?

SPEAKER_02 32:59

You don't get this, but yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Okay. This one we can move up?

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yes. Oh. So do we set it this way so that you're gonna pull it a little bit further back.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

So you cannot see in it.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

So I can't see in it, but the camera, I cannot see.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

I get it.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

I can see kind of shadows through it.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Can you be trustworthy today and not?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

I'll close my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

So this is a sensory box, and Nate is not gonna be able to see what is in the box, so he's just gonna have to reach in and touch it and feel and then describe it.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

So the way we set it up for our kindergartners is we define what a lake habitat is, and we tell them that a habitat is a home for a plant or an animal that provides the resources that that organism needs. I have in this box some organisms or things from organisms that we would find in a lake habitat. And so you are gonna have to guess what you are feeling that would belong in a lake habitat.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

In a lake. Okay, I'm closing my eyes.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Alright. This is the first item.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Tell me when it's ready.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Alright, it is ready for you.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

Okay. For those of you who are just listening, I'm putting my hand in a box and I feel a bowl of some sort. And it's got oh, gross.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

It's got some squishy sort of definitely just got through saying what little kids say, ooh, gross.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Adults can say gross too, Susie. Okay. All right. So this feels like it could be like fish eggs potentially. Yeah. I don't know if they actually are, but they kind of have the feeling of fish eggs, kind of a little bit slimy and gelatinous and moist at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

So that is exactly our goal. Our goal is to replicate fish eggs or tadpoles, and we are not actually using any fish eggs. So these are orbies. You can open your eyes. Okay. You had your hands.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

I was wondering if I could snarl my fingers or not, but I'm glad it's not real fish eggs.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

No, it's just orbees. Orbees are a really fun, kindergarten-friendly way to replicate the sensation of feeling orbees. And if it inspires them to go catch Ted Poles later, then I would count that as success.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Great. You ready for our item number two?

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yes, I am. I feel like I need to wipe my hand off.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Well.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

I'll be alright. Okay. Let's move on to the next one.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

The second one is in there for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

So Nate has put his hand in the box. He's feeling around. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Really?

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Oh, here's something over here. Something really small. Okay. It's very light. And it's got kind of a central sort of spine to it with soft little things going up the sides. I would guess this has gotta be a feather.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

That is correct. I put two feathers in there to um replicate all the awesome waterfowl that we find around our lakes, whether that's ducks or geese or even a really cool osprey or bald eagle. We want kids to be aware that there are both fish in the lake, tadpools, and some feathered friends.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Did you know that these feathers sorry, this is kind of aside, but um they're they actually, I don't know what they're called, but all the little fibers that come from that central uh part on it, there's like velcro-like fasteners between such that if you take a feather and you do this, you mess it all up. But then if you run your finger up again, you can get all of those uh fasteners to re-fasten together. Sometimes you even see birds doing that when they're what we would call like preening their feathers. They're kind of you know moving their show us that again, Nate. Preen your feathers kind of hopped up the side. Um and so that's kind of a really cool uh feature of feathers.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Maybe we should let Susie have the feathers. Okay. I don't want her to feel left out. Oh, I don't feel left out. This one's really soft. Loved feathers. This one's soft and it's pretty. I think it might come.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Oh, this one's kind of has an iridescence to it.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Yes. Okay, beautiful. Couple more items. So while you're looking at the feather, I'll put the next one in.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

He's got his eyes closed.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Oh, I know what this is. Okay. Okay, and this is something much harder than the other things. It's got a little bit of weight to it, kind of circular, smooth side and a rougher side. It feels like it's gotta be some sort of a muscle shell.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yes, that is exactly right. So if you haven't seen the freshwater mupshole episode yet, you should. We have a freshwater muscle in the box. And we tell kids how important these are because they are filter feeders, which is a very big word for kindergartners, I will admit, but we use it to talk about how they can get teeny tiny pieces of food out of the water and they are still able to eat, even though we can't see them eating. They are taking those teeny tiny plankton and gobbling it up.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Yeah, so those phytoplankton, like we just talked about, is one of our mocab words.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

You or she did that on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Probably. She isn't she is a professional educator, so that's exciting.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

All right, I have three more items. Are you up for it?

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Right. Oh, I don't want to make noise. Okay, that might have given it away. But I was just moving the shell. You can feel okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

All right, here's the next thing. Okay, this also is a little heavier. It has a smooth side, two smooth sides. On the inside, I can feel uh something that's kind of like vertebrae. So I'm guessing this is a turtle shell.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

It is a turtle shell. We are blessed to have several different turtle shells, and we love using them to talk to kids about turtles. It kind of displaces their inclination to just pick up any turtle that they find anywhere because oftentimes they could be endangered. But if we let them get as hands-on and touchy-feely as they want with Rochelle, they will kind of have that curiosity abated and they'll they'll be able to remember it themselves in a safer way.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Right. And we also had an episode dealing, we've had actually several episodes dealing with turtles. So people can put those back up. They want to learn more about turtles.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Turtles are a kindergarten favorite. They get to meet Meatball or Pinna Turtle on their visit, and it's so watched fun.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

And they understand when they leave not to pick up a turtle and take it home.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

They do.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yes. Alrighty.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Item number five.

unknown 39:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Middle butter noise. Pretend it didn't.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Oh my golly. We're putting it the right side up, too. Yep, that's good. Don't look you. You are already.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Okay, I put my hand on there now.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Something almost like papery. It's flexible. I can it's kind of has some texture on the one side more than the other. It's almost like some sort of uh but I don't know what it is. Or um this feels a little bit like cardboard. I would have to guess that it's the skin of some sort of organism, maybe, maybe uh, maybe fish, but I'm not exactly sure.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

Yes, you can open. I want you to be able to see this one.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

Oh yeah, that looks a carp.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

A preserved piece of fish scales, and it probably was from a carp. Luckily for the kids, though, we don't have to dive too much into invasive species at kindergarten, but we can talk about how fish have scales to help protect them. So we do have a piece of fish cark skin that's really cool. Preserved for us. I don't love the feeling of it myself, but it is it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

So, Emily, have you, since you've been doing this for a bit, kids that you've had in kindergarten maybe have come back as second graders or fifth graders. Yeah. Um, what can you say about their experience that as they mature on water literacy?

SPEAKER_02 41:10

I can say that I have seen them come back year after year and they have remembered vocab words that we've mentioned, or they are excited to partake in our hands-on experiences. I'll have second graders walk in the door and they are so excited to see the fish again, and they know they're gonna do something with coloring and the VA, but then we add those little twists and those little uh changes to make it more grade appropriate, and they are able to apply concepts that they had already learned or are maybe a little familiar with and just build upon it even more. And that's been really rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Yeah, we know from educational research that people learn by connecting new concepts to things that they already have some sort of framework of in their lives.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

We hope our listeners are doing that, yeah. Like Dr. Pagan. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

So when there's a experience that's memorable, that sort of hands-on activity, and then you connect with it some of this information, then that information will be remembered better because that activity or that experience was was worthy of remembering.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

It's kind of like cementing it.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Yeah, that's a good way to describe it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Well, do you feel brave enough for one last item? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

I've got my eyes closed, ready for the last one.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Ready for the last one. All right, it's in there.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Susie is making some laughing noises, so this feels crinkly and soft and uh that's definitely snake skin.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yes, but it's not a snake, it's just shed. It's just a little donation from Gwen.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

So sorry. Sometimes we do have water snakes in and around.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

We've been asked about the snake thing.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

I I didn't lie. It's not a snake. So do kids encounter snakes when they're outdoors? Um, yes, we have encountered some girder snakes when we were hiking. Um, I wasn't quick enough to catch it last time I saw one, but we do sometimes encounter them. We're much more likely to encounter frogs and turtles, especially on our on-campus wetland, which is where most of our outdoor hikes take place. It's a lot of fun. Oh. Have you gotten to walk those trails recently? No. Oh, well, you shed they're beautiful.

Volunteering And Community Support

SPEAKER_01 43:29

I should have gone waiting with your group most recently, but someday, someday we'll do that. Yes. This whole project, this whole Lily Center, Emily's work, it's an investment. Um what do you see as a way that volunteers or uh people can help with your investment in this work?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Volunteering is one key way. As Emily mentioned before, we have over 10,000 student connections every year, and we have professional staff like Emily, and we have student staff, many interns like she used to be when she was a college student. But that's not enough. That's not enough to have a meaningful experience for those students that come to our programs. We need additional volunteers to really help hit these messages home, to help facilitate these as safe experiences, as hands-on experiences, as we've been talking about. And so we love having volunteers come in, community members. They might not be expert educators, but they enjoy learning themselves. They have some extra time that they can give. Um, and uh and they have a lot of fun. They come back again and again, and uh we try to appreciate them well and uh show that that they are an important team member here of the Lily Center, though they're not paid, they are uh really important to our work. And so I think volunteering is one. I think financially investing is another way that people can get involved with the educational things. The equipment that we have, the supplies that we have, the salaries for our staff members, those are all things that uh cost money, and we have uh many wonderful donors who help and organizations that grant dollars to us to help with those things, but we could always use more to impact additional uh K-12 students throughout our community.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

So, Emily, if if I were interested in volunteering, or if one of our listeners or viewers is interested in volunteering, um how much time would they need to commit? Do you provide training? And how do I do that? How do I connect with you?

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Yeah, well, to start by connecting with us, you can go to our website and follow the links there to get in touch. And then as for the time commitment, it can be however much time you can invest. I mentioned earlier that our field trips are three times a week during the school year, but we have some volunteers who prefer to commit to maybe only every other Wednesday during a school year. We have other volunteers who prefer to only work with older students. Um, and we even have volunteers who share with us that they have a specialty in one field or in one age range, and we seek to put them with those groups as best as we can. Um, after getting in contact, there will be a series of trainings, and they would never be just thrown into the deep end. They would get a lot of support and opportunities to build their confidence before they were the water analogy.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

They aren't gonna throw you in the deep end if you volunteer. You're gonna get some life preservers first and maybe a waiter and then deep end.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

That's what I tell my interns too. I'm like, don't worry, you don't have to speak for 30 minutes right away. You get to just start by helping and getting used to the flow of our field trips. That's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Oh, that is really amazing work. So I think um, is there anything that you that we miss? Anything you want to share with our listeners, our viewers?

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Um I would just say that getting kids outside and getting kids interested in the outdoors is only gonna bless our future. All of these kids are either gonna stay in the area or move away to a different area, but the concepts they're learning at the Lily Center serve them regardless of their ecosystem.

Future Citizens Plus Virtual Aquarium

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Because as we've said many times, these are our future city council members, these are our city future business people, uh, future business owners, future wastewater treatment facilitators, uh, future community members in general. And if they have that knowledge, that empathy, and just a degree of passion for taking care of the awesome resources they have, it is gonna serve the greater community uh so so well.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah, I would say naturally our as a society, our knowledge is decreasing about water concepts and yet the threats to our waterways are increasing. And so that makes this water literacy work that much more critical, especially in an area here of northern Indiana where we're blessed with so many lakes and so many streams, it becomes critical that we invest in our future citizens in that way.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Emily, thank you so much. But tell us now about our project.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Well, I can see that we have made some beautiful pieces of art here. Let's show the viewers what we've created. So, Susie, can you hold yours up? As you can see, she made sure to put her name on there, which is always important. My Susie psychedelic fish. I love it. How much yours?

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Mine's a little bit more muted in its colors.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Oh, I like it.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Because I was listening to your instructions about camouflage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Good job. We have some blue-tinted crayfish in our aquarium lab. It's very pretty. Well, let's see hers. Alright, here's mine. I had a bass. I tried to include um his scales and his lateral line. So the fish. I try. Before we wrap up today, should we add them to our virtual aquarium like the kids do on their field trips?

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yes, please, let's do.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Alright, let's do that. Alright, are you guys excited to see your creations come to life? Yes, Emily. Please. So we do. Well, here are our beautiful fish. Oh, if yours is upside down. Mine is upside down, but it's not gonna be upside down when we go in. We have our virtual aquarium here, which was the first freshwater virtual aquarium created just for us from an awesome software company out of Florida. So after kids and yourselves have decorated their fish, we add our name to it and then we add it to the virtual aquarium to see them come to life. Who wants to go first?

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

I'll go alright.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Let's add your picture.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

My psychedelic video.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

We have a camera that looks down, it will scan those QR codes, and out comes. Oh, that looks good!

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Look at that.

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Let's see how this is.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Good swimmer.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

And we will see that the program has been designed to have the fish mimic its real life behavior. So, um, these perch, these bass, the sunfish, they're gonna stay kind of in that mid-level of the water column. Here comes Emily's perch. Yeah, I think it had a bass. Oh, bass? If we had a pike, it would stay way up near the top. But let's see where Dr. Nick's crayfish goes. If he's gonna come out here, it's it's so camouflaged. We'll have to really open our eyes. So are those the pike up there? Yes, those are the pike up there. And here Oh, look at so the legs are moving!

SPEAKER_00 50:56

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

And as you'll see, it will touch down and joy its other crayfish friends at the bottom of the lake. So this is a great opportunity to talk to kids about how their creations are mimicking real-life fish swimming in our local lakes and our local extremes.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Do the kids get really excited about seeing their names on this?

SPEAKER_02 51:18

They love it. They like run up to the front of the room, they beg their teachers to take pictures, they create storylines for their fish. They'll be like, oh look, Michaela, my fish, and your fish are best friends in real life. And then they get very, very sad when they have to say goodbye to the fish, too. They're like, they they want to stay forever.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

So this program was created for you. First of its kind. Congratulations. This is an awesome educational tool to help create water literate citizens. Yes. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, Dr. Nate.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Thank you, guys. Thank you very much for joining us for the Lake Doctor podcast. Please make sure that you're sharing this, commenting. Let us know what what more you'd like to see. Have a great day, and we'll see you next time. The Doctor is in.