Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast
Welcome to Lake Doctor: A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast, your go-to source for understanding and preserving the health of our local lakes. Join hosts Dr. Nate Bosch, an expert in limnology, and Suzie Light, a lifelong resident and passionate advocate for our aquatic environments, as they dive deep into the challenges facing Kosciusko County's lakes.
Dr. Nate Bosch grew up in Michigan and received his doctorate in 2007 from the University of Michigan in limnology. With 18 peer-reviewed publications spanning research from the Great Lakes to smaller inland lakes and streams, Nate has been awarded the prestigious Chandler Misner Award twice by the International Association of Great Lakes Research. At Grace College, Nate is a professor in the environmental science program, dean of the School of Science and Engineering, and leads the Lilly Center team, serving the local community with dedication and expertise.
Each episode tackles these critical issues head-on, featuring insightful interviews with our partners, engaging Q&A sessions, and fun segments for the science enthusiasts among us. You'll get a behind-the-scenes look at the impactful research and education efforts spearheaded by the Lilly Center and discover how we can all contribute to safeguarding our precious freshwater ecosystems.
Tune in bi-monthly starting June 2024, and join the conversation by leaving comments or emailing us at lakes@grace.eduwith your questions and ideas. Supported by the K21 Health Foundation, Rick and April Sasso, and DreamOn Studios, this podcast aims to inspire and inform the next generation of water-literate citizens and environmental stewards. Learn more about our work and how to support us at lakes.grace.edu.
Lake Doctor | A Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams Podcast
Getting Out of the Classroom: Hands-On, Experiential Learning with Treleen Cox
In this episode of The Lake Doctor Podcast, we sit down with Treleen Cox, a first-grade teacher at Leesburg Elementary who is passionate about hands-on learning. Treleen shares how she introduces her students to the wonders of the natural world through exploration, curiosity, and interactive experiences. From outdoor, exploratory lessons to engaging classroom experiments, her approach shows how even the youngest learners can begin to see how the world around them has so much beauty and complexity.
Together, we discuss the power of experiential education and how fostering curiosity early can lead to lifelong environmental stewardship. Treleen’s stories highlight the impact of connecting children with lakes, wetlands, streams, and the outdoors—helping them not only understand science but also develop respect for the world around them. Whether you’re an educator, parent, or lifelong learner, this episode offers inspiration for cultivating wonder in the next generation.
Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.
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Thanks for joining us on today's episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. I'm Suzy Light and my co-host is Dr Nate Bosch, a professional lake nerd.
Speaker 2:That's true. I received my PhD in limnology from the University of Michigan. That's Freshwater Lakes. In today's episode, we're excited to have Traleen Cox here. She is a first grade teacher at Leesburg Elementary and we're going to talk about the importance of hands-on learning.
Speaker 1:And we'll also probably get a tip about how to clear water out of waders, or at least the Lilly Center way of clearing water out of waders. We are excited about today's episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. I am so excited to meet you as a Leesburg teacher. You are really forming young minds. Tell us a bit about you and how you got here.
Speaker 4:Well, that is an interesting story. At five and a half, our family flew from Johannesburg, south Africa, to Chicago.
Speaker 4:In 1976, january snowstorm had never seen snow before landed and the only thing I remember is it's cold. Uh, took a bus to Warsaw Winona Lake area and, uh, the last go, Mr Zalasco picked us up and my dad went to grace seminary and then, in 1983, we went to the mission field with Grace Brother Mission to Europe and I went to a missionary school called Black Forest Academy, graduated from there, came back to Grace and got an education degree here at Grace and graduated in 92. Met my husband working with a youth group and we got married and we've been here 32 years, going on 33. And I taught for a couple of years when our kids were little and then I've gone back to teaching since 2012. So, three adult kids three adult 28, 26, and one turning 23 on Thursday and two dogs. Oh yeah, we have my mother's dog and our dog.
Speaker 2:Do they all? Get along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they get along. The kids are kind of picking on the dogs once in a while, but they get along right.
Speaker 4:That's right, and they're all married and we have two grandkids and one on the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, congratulations. That's exciting. How did your background growing up overseas impact you as a teacher?
Speaker 4:I think one of the biggest thing is curiosity. My parents are not American, so, like when I went to elementary school, here we arrived in January. Valentine's Day was February. We'd never had Valentine's Day. I went to school with one Valentine and the teacher was great. It was Jefferson Elementary and my mom and dad didn't know the typical American cultural things. So I had a mix of different cultures and then went to Black Forest Academy and there's a whole bunch of cultures that are coming into play there with the kids and living in a dorm, you get to know them.
Speaker 4:So I feel like my perspective on life is a little bit different. Sometimes it gets me in trouble and sometimes it's helpful. It just all depends. The one thing I love about it is just the curiosity about learning about other things and how things are different, how things are the same and how they can impact you. So I think growing up overseas, growing up with parents who were not American, it just really impacted the way I look at the world and how you teach things.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, because when we have a lot of EL students at Leesburg Elementary, so one of the things I like to tell them is I'm not American either. Now I have my citizenship now after being married so many years. But I think it sort of gave some of the parents oh, you get it, you know what it's like to come to a country. We don't know everything. So when I send notes home, when I explain things, I feel like I really try to make sure that it's understood and then with the kids, being able to get them curious about here. But also I want to know about their culture and that's a great thing for them to be proud of the culture that they came from. So it kind of impacts everything what we're reading and what we're talking about and curiosity and all those pieces.
Speaker 1:So Trillene's experiences have informed her as how she teaches. Have your experiences informed how you teach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not so much geographically, but certainly I can look back at different school experiences growing up in Michigan. I can remember third grade spitting watermelon seeds with one of our classes. I can remember high school chemistry class doing lots of hands-on sorts of experiments in the lab there. I can remember college taking a general ecology class where we were out. I went to school in the Chicagoland area and we were out in some of the forest preserve areas around Chicago learning about prairies and forests and rivers and lakes. And then graduate school at University of Michigan.
Speaker 2:I can recall a stream ecology class I took there. My teacher wrote his own textbook which was kind of interesting, which was the textbook for the class. And I can remember going up to the uh to Northern Michigan where there was a field station and um in the middle of winter chest waders on uh collecting fish via electro fishing and a stream up there as the snow is falling down and my toes are freezing off and my chest weighters. I just I love that sort of experiential hands-on. Even what Trillene was saying about curiosity, those hands-on outdoor experiences for me growing up heightened my sense of curiosity in the natural world and wanting to understand more.
Speaker 1:So Trillene Nate alluded to hands-on training and you do some unique things in your classroom with your students. Tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 4:I love getting the messy. The more messy, the more loud. I remember hearing a speaker say if you step in my room and it's like a zoo, that's because we're learning and that's sort of my approach Now the teachers that work with me would say I am firm but loving. I like to have both. I like to have controlled. Chaos is probably more. We have done some of the project-based learning, where you give a question and then you start doing experiments where they are figuring out the answer through what they're working on.
Speaker 4:And first graders do that First grade yes, and it's really fun to see the kids who maybe struggle with reading or they struggle with expressing themselves and you've got them in groups together and they are working together and all of a sudden they start to realize, oh, you draw really. Well, you're going to draw the poster for us. And then when they get up to talk in first grade, we're teaching them to share what they learned and talk. And it may be a minute, but they're talking, we're teaching them. How do you express what you learned? How do you tell others this exciting thing that you've done? There's a picture on my Facebook page for our students where I'm actually on the desk with we were doing some things with wind and so we had a parachute and we were dropping it and they had to design the parachute and how would it work. And I love to do those kinds of things. But then we also write about them. It's sort of a pulling it all together so they can see how all the pieces come together.
Speaker 4:We've done where we've gone outside. We have our wetlands at Leesburg Elementary and we have sixth grade buddies. The sixth grade buddies come and they read with the kids, they talk to the kids. We try to do about once a month. The teacher I work with is Miss Eichenauer and Miss Binkard. We had two of their classes with mine this year and then go out and we have waiters and we have nets and the sixth graders get to help the first graders because there's no way one of me is going to get everybody in their waiters. It's just not going to happen. So they help them. But then they get in and I oh my goodness, it is so exciting as the kids go, look, look, there's a froglet, because we've been talking about all of the things that we have in our wetlands. We talk about the life cycles and maybe we do a cut and paste. But seeing it in real life, oh, that's magic. And the kids I think that maybe are a little bit quieter. That brings them out.
Speaker 4:And they're excited. It was really cool to also see the sixth graders really helping the little kids, Some of the ones that you would never dream that they would even care, because as you're pairing them up, you're like, oh well, okay let's try and see and they're like taking these little kids under their wings and they're getting in their water with them and they're helping them with these big waders on and getting the nets.
Speaker 4:And just that hands-on experience for them is I couldn't do that by myself. So being able to do that with the sixth grade buddies, but then having the sixth graders who have that vocabulary about the wetlands because they've been doing some of those studies themselves, being able to then talk about all the pieces and you know we do water cycle, we do. We've had Darcy Zolman come and do some things from the Kosciuszko County Soil and Conservation. I know she's retired and someone else has come and done things they're talking about. You know the sponge and how the wetlands are so important so that our kids.
Speaker 4:Not only are they learning it for academic pieces, but even just our community how this is so important.
Speaker 1:And the academic pieces that you're teaching align with Indiana state standards for education per class. So the sixth graders are learning something in compliance with their standards versus your first graders. Nate, tell us about programs at the Lilly Center that help teachers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have a number of programs which happen here in this facility at the Lilly Center indoor field trips that we do, we have programs where we bring kids outside behind the Lilly Center facility. Here We've got actually three different wetlands on campus here at Grace College and the one closest to our facility we take the K-12 students into. We do what's called the Lake in the Library program where we have an aquarium and a local library. Usually in elementary schools and students will come through there and learn different things and do different educational projects with the aquariums there. We will do Lake Adventure Day, which is for fourth graders specifically, and then they go fishing and do water testing and again a lot of hands-on things there as well. And we also have a program with our School of Education here at Grace. They have a methods of science class that those students take. Grace. They have a methods of science class that those students take and that's another opportunity for us to get in the schools with our aspiring teachers.
Speaker 2:Right, and I know you help with our school of education here, and that's a really cool program too, because we extend beyond what we normally would be able to do here in our facility out into the schools and these future teachers are able to hone their skills on teaching science, how to engage students, how to increase that curiosity like we've been talking about.
Speaker 1:Trillian, you've brought your students here to the Lilly Center on a field trip. Tell us about that, and what do the kids get out of that?
Speaker 4:So we come in the fall and actually I believe every grade in our building gets to come, so that's a really cool that. So we come in the fall and actually I believe every grade in our building gets to come, so that's a really cool experience. So our whole first grade came and they've got different stations set up. I love the kids walking in the building because they're going oh they see the fish take out there.
Speaker 4:They're excited to learn. But what's really awesome is the things that they get to learn, that I can tell them about some of those things, but being able to see the fish, see the frogs and then we go in and they do the topography, where they then talk about the pollution and where would you put the farm and where would you put, and they love to put their hands in there and see it you know, do all that. But then we get to talk about it when we get back as well, all that.
Speaker 4:But then, we get to talk about it when we get back as well, and with some of the science of reading where we're really trying to shore up our reading. We've been talking about the need for background knowledge. This is giving them that experience of that background knowledge.
Speaker 1:Explain what background knowledge is and how that helps somebody.
Speaker 4:So, as we are looking at students reading and comprehending, when we were in school they would have been read this article. Answer some questions. Yay, they comprehend. But if I read an article about something I already know, I'm going to have a really great comprehension score more than likely. But if you're an American student and you have an article, let's say, about cricket, the sport of cricket, now I may know a little bit because my dad played cricket, my family's British, but a student who doesn't would be clueless and then trying to answer questions.
Speaker 4:So do they truly comprehend what they're reading? Or you know, how can we really understand that? So in the education world, especially this year as we're starting a new reading curriculum, we're really talking about how can we offer students more background knowledge so that when they're reading something they're not fighting with trying to understand every single piece. They've got a little bit to shore them up. So, with our nonfiction material, that's sometimes hard for first graders with the nonfiction. Parents often read a lot of stories, which is great. We love that parents read their kids' stories, but we also want them to read nonfiction material so that they know the facts.
Speaker 2:And I think in this community here, kosciuszko County, northern Indiana, where we have over 100 lakes, 600 miles of streams, there's great opportunity for background knowledge with our aquatic resources here, and what I think is really cool about that is as these kids continue to grow up and be contributing members of our area in the future in different positions of influence, they're going to continually be exposed to those lakes and streams that we have and so that background knowledge will create sort of this matrix of knowledge and I think you guys even call it a schema, which is that sort of background knowledge that students will connect to and continue to build on their literacy.
Speaker 2:I think the other thing that you said which is really interesting is nonfiction, and we've noticed with these aquariums that we put in classrooms or in libraries or community centers it creates a need to know right. So the youngster might be sitting in a classroom and they're watching what's going on in this aquarium and they see the catfish is always down near the bottom of the aquarium and they might wonder, well, why are catfish is always down near the bottom of the aquarium? And they might wonder, well, why are catfish always at the bottom and why is the bass always swimming up near the surface and there might be a great non-fiction book and we actually put a library of books along with our aquariums in the schools. There might be a great book that will answer that question and so that youngster is is driven to want to read because they want to be interested, because they have the aquarium, they have more of that background knowledge so they'll comprehend better what they're reading and it all just kind of builds on each other for a life of literacy then going forward.
Speaker 4:Which is what we want. We want them to be curious, we want them to read more, but not just to read, because there's a test. But I can read to learn and we have a little saying in our class and we say we're becoming better readers so that we can get a job that we like and want, giving them the purpose why am I learning to read? What's the purpose of reading? Oh, so I can get a job that I want and like, and maybe I need to add a little bit more now so that you can learn more about different things in the community and we can always add pieces to that, but I love that we have a community that has these opportunities.
Speaker 4:A lot of our kids go to the lakes in the summertime, so what a great way for them to become curious, and our wetlands bring some of that curiosity, which I really love. We have binoculars, so we have the soil. I don't know what you call it, where you put it in the soil, and you soil probe, yes, soil probe and um, being able to take them out and do some of those things is really great.
Speaker 4:Uh, just even talking to them about you know, when we were walking. We have a trail, you go one way and then you go another way. We actually have an outside classroom so you can actually have them sit and do some things right there too. And then, when you go a little bit more, we have an outlook. You go up, you can actually have them sit and do some things right there too, and then when you go a little bit more, we have an outlook.
Speaker 4:You go up and you can look out, and so we get the binoculars out and the kids look, and having them talk about what they see, but then use the vocabulary.
Speaker 2:Teach them the vocabulary so they have that. So I'm seeing some really cool parallels between first graders and my freshman in college. In that one is that curiosity and that wonder so somewhere that is lost in the educational system. Oftentimes and I'll admit oftentimes it's us science teachers that make things a little boring and it's a little too vocab and memorizing heavy. Maybe history does that too a little bit.
Speaker 1:I had better history and science.
Speaker 2:Good yeah, Good Well I did too.
Speaker 2:I mean well so we, um, when we get a student out in that environment and I teach a general ecology class which is most mostly freshmen, so 12 years after they would be in class with you they're in a stream and they're catching a crayfish, for example, as we're doing some stream sampling, and they're remembering back to their childhood, maybe when they caught a crayfish, or maybe they didn't have that sort of a childhood, they didn't have that opportunity, and so they're catching one for the first time and that wonder comes back, which is so cool to see.
Speaker 2:The other parallel I was thinking about is thinking it had to career. Now, my students in college are a little closer to that career than your students as first graders. But I say a very similar thing. I say to my college students my goal for you is that you are excited to get up for work every day. I have that in my role here at Grace and I want that for you too, as one of my students, and so we're talking about those similar things, which I think is so cool, even though we work with students that are 12 years apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when you have first graders coming here to the Lilly Center, is there a way that you can help reinforce what Trila's doing about? The work that you're doing as a student will help you get a job and be happy for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think it is because these students are starting to grow in these different skills. It's problem solving, critical thinking. We talk about grit sometimes. This background knowledge helps with their reading literacy as they go up into later grades. These are these really important foundational skills. That's going to be important not only to be a student as they continue in their educational timeline, but it's also important as an employee someday in a job. And so sure, we're learning about watersheds and water cycles and how lake ecosystems work, but we're learning more broadly about organization in the natural world around us and being curious about things enough to go out and find information. And maybe you won't succeed right at first. So you've got to have the grit to continue on, to dig into that topic and learn more about it.
Speaker 2:And so there's this joke everything you needed to know you learned out of the kindergarten or well, maybe it's as a first grader, but I think that's really true in a lot of these respects, as long as we have great educators in those early grades who understand some of the things that you've been talking about, Trillene.
Speaker 1:So what would you say to a parent or a business owner who says field trips are stuff and nonsense and it really isn't beneficial to a kid?
Speaker 4:Well, first I would want to explain to them the importance of for some of our kids they've never been to those places Whether it's going here, to the importance of for some of our kids they've never been to those places, whether it's going here to the Lilly Center, whether it's going to Pottawatomie Zoo, whether you know, we've got a lot of different places that our different grades go to. For them they need the experience, get that background knowledge, but the curiosity. Not only that, but we do try and tie them with what we're learning. So it's that practical, hands-on. I get to see it, I get to touch it, I get the curiosity.
Speaker 4:My class is called Mrs Cox's Cool Chameleons. So when we went to the Pottawatomie Zoo they had the Illuminate. Just recently there was a chameleon and all the kids came back to tell me that they saw the chameleon, they know what a chameleon is. But then we read books about true facts in a chameleon and the false myths about chameleons. And how do we know whether it's true? And our librarian even pulls that in. You know, teaching them how to be able to discern between that, but telling business owners how important it is for our kids to experience something, that hands-on piece we all know we learn better if we sit and memorize things. For, whether it's the driver's test, whether it's whatever we need to do as adults, how many of us are doing something with our hands or we're drawing a picture so that we can remember it? We know that that's better. We just sometimes don't do that with our children.
Speaker 1:We just sometimes don't do that with our children.
Speaker 2:So I've heard the phrase transactional education and transformational education and what you're talking about is actually transformational Right, not a transaction where the teacher tells a factoid and the student then repeats back that factoid. Teaching to the test? Yes, and we know that that's the necessary back that factoid.
Speaker 1:Teaching to the test?
Speaker 4:Yes, and we know that that's the necessary evil that we have. I mean, like there's tests and we need to know that they're learning things, but there's also ways that we can help them remember that material and grow on that material, and that's what we want. And my goal as a first grade teacher is very different than, you know, a professor or a sixth grade teacher. I have first graders. They are still curious and want to be at school. What can I do to keep them curious and keep them wanting to come back, having them go home and say, mom, that was really cool. We went to the Lilly Center and they got to draw a fish and then they put it up on the screen and it was so awesome. And then when I share materials with them about what's available that we have in our community, the kids want to go. Well, as a parent I mean my kids are older but as a parent I'm not going to drag my kids somewhere. They don't want to go, but if they're excited about going I'm going to bring them.
Speaker 4:And we had a student last year who came to one of the summer programs and he came back and he was in second grade and he's like Mrs Cox, guess what, and it was so cool to hear him talk about it. But I'm not sure if he would have come if we wouldn't have done the Lilly Center field trip that we did, and I think that's another way to. We don't know, we may produce a scientist that's going to do something that's going to change the world. I don't want to stifle that. I want to open up the door for them to walk through it.
Speaker 2:And oftentimes we know that in learning we learn best when we connect things that we're experiencing now with other things in the past. That goes back to that background knowledge again, right, so if we can help bolster that background knowledge so that even going forward into second, third, fourth on up into college, maybe even grad school, where, as the student is encountering new pieces of information, they can connect it back to these previous experiences as kind of anchors for their knowledge going forward, it can be a much more powerful and and and, um, yeah, and and make it that much more effective in the future too.
Speaker 4:We even talked to our kids about you're a scientist. What do scientists do? They observe we go out. We have a great area at Leesburg where we've got, you know, the wetlands, but there's all the greenery there.
Speaker 4:What do you observe? And then we talk about the five senses and then they write down what they observe and we talk about how they can be scientists when they're at home and I think that just gets them thinking in that world of science. I always loved teaching science. That's just a passion I've had. I love teaching all those pieces, but I never, ever wanted to. Oh well, we don't have time today, we're not going to teach science. I can't do that. Because that's exciting. The kids get excited. The kids who struggle reading. They look forward to that break.
Speaker 3:They don't realize it's not really a break, because they're still learning.
Speaker 4:but that's what we want. We want them to see this as something exciting and then guess what they want to read yeah, and what an asset that is for your school to have that wetland right there, oh huge.
Speaker 2:I've been there before and the trail system that goes back there to that wetland area a little bit of poison ivy, I remember. We tell the kids you got to stay on the trail, but that's a good thing anyway, so we don't want them sniffing.
Speaker 2:we talked about five senses we don't want them sniffing or touching poison we get to teach them what is poison ivy too, which is good right, but yeah, what just an amazing and that's such a beautiful wetland back there, um, just just a great learning environment and and good for you at leesburg to take advantage of that opportunity that you have there for those students right on your own property. It's pretty remarkable, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Nate, you've taken your students on field trips. What are some of the field labs that you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we get to go on lots of field trips and environmental science here at Grace College. Some that come to my mind I love wetlands, wetlands. We get to put those chest waders on and oftentimes students get stuck in the mud literally and other students are helping them out, and so it's a great bonding experience for students. Most of them are freshmen just coming into college, so they're getting to know their classmates that they'll have a lot of classes with throughout their time here at Grace, so that's really fun. Rivers again, and chest waders catching crayfish like we talked about before, we have a great blue heron rookery that we visit, which is really fun.
Speaker 2:I love going out on the lakes. We'll go out on boats on our local lakes taking samples. We'll collect bloodworms from the bottom of the lakes and bloodworms Remember, we've talked about that on a previous episode right, and I'll dare the students to eat bloodworms. And probably my favorite and upper level ecology class that I teach aquatic ecology we go caving in Southern Indiana and that's been a hobby of mine for many years since I was a youngster, and just a completely different part of God's creation that most people don't get to experience, or if they do, they go on a you know what I would call kind of a commercialized sort of caving experience with lights and handrails and steps and stuff.
Speaker 1:That'll be my cave experience.
Speaker 2:And we get to go in what we'd call a wild cave where you're just exploring stuff. That'll be my cave experience. And we get to go in what we'd call a wild cave where you're just exploring and it's just really remarkable the rock formations and the animals you see, and it's a really neat experience.
Speaker 4:So you have a job that you like and want yes. That's what we're trying to teach the kids, it is. It is.
Speaker 1:Trulene, what's your favorite field trip that you've taken with your students? Oh, aside from the wetlands at Leesburg.
Speaker 4:I think going to the zoo is a really awesome one because we can talk so much about what they see and what they heard. The smells are something else that they do. One of our paras this year actually got captured a lion roaring and the lioness was replying, and so the next day I was able to show the students. I said, were you there? And two of the kids were there when she recorded it. But it was so cool because they were like whoa, you know, just being able to put all that to good use for them. You know the practicality, the experience of being there.
Speaker 4:There's not as much of the touching that we've been able to do as far as in the zoo, but we can talk about all that. I, you know we get out fur and different things, you know, throughout the year with different activities that we do. But I love hearing their perspective on what they remember and what their favorite part is. And what you think they're going to say is never what they actually say. Sometimes they observe things and wow, it's insightful. Or oh, we were talking with so-and-so and we noticed that the giraffe's tongue is really long and the other kid will say and it's black, wow, they're observing and they're noticing and they can come back with those long and the other kid will say and it's black. Wow, they're observing and they're noticing and they can come back with those memories and then we write about it, tell us about what you experienced, and that always is fun to see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are some of my favorite times as a teacher, too is coming back from some sort of a field experience that we've had and hearing the conversations of the students talk about like, did you see that? And oh, wasn't it funny when he got stuck in the mud, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Those are just great, great opportunities to hear oh, tell me your first graders, don't get stuck in the mud, oh well we had a sixth grader helping a first grader.
Speaker 4:The first grader didn't go in the water but the sixth grader did, but they did their job, they saved the first grader. The first grader didn't go in the water but the sixth grader did. But you know, they did their job, they saved the first grader. I mean, the teachers were there, but there was a branch. First of all, I almost fell in because I put the waders on too, Like I'm not going to go out there and not get in the water too. I mean, that's the exciting part. But there was a branch and I was the first one that discovered that. I stepped on the branch under the water and it kind of almost fell.
Speaker 4:And I said, hey, by the way, be careful, we know how kids listen to everything we say. And so there was one or two that almost fell in and then did fall in, but they thought it was hilarious. This is sounding so much like me. With my college students I have the same conversation. There's a little bit alike, isn't there? Yeah?
Speaker 2:And those are some of the best memories with the college students is people falling in the water and filling up their waders with water, because then it becomes this whole story and we go out on the bank and someone. You know how you can turn somebody into a wheelbarrow where they're kind of walking on their hands and you're holding their legs back behind them. You've seen that before.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what you need to do to get the water out of the waders, right? So someone's standing there kind of in a push-up position, and then someone else comes behind and picks up their ankles and then all this water just pours out of the waiters and it's just a great, great time. We actually, when we're going into a lab where we're going to be in chest waiters, we will often have people make predictions on how many people will fall in and fill their waiters during that particular lab. We're not telling the sixth graders that, because then they would want to do it on purpose, so that they can experience that.
Speaker 4:So I'll keep that little tidbit quiet, but now I'll know what to do when they do fall in.
Speaker 1:Helpful information. There we go. So Trulene Leesburg Elementary School has a wonderful asset in the wetlands. How did it come to be?
Speaker 4:So I've been at Leesburg since 2012, and I don't remember exactly the details, but they have the wetlands and, as we've been exploring more about what we can do, I believe it was community funds that helped be able to put the paths down. We have a peer there. We now have an outside classroom that was funded for us so we can actually sit with the kids, and then there's also a path where there's the outlook that the kids can go on, and it just has been such a blessing because it's right there and we have a large population that are low socioeconomics whether it's situational poverty or whether it's, you know that long term it doesn't matter. They need those experiences and so being able to give them those experiences has been such a benefit for us to be able to benefit our kids learning more about the community that we live in.
Speaker 4:Leesburg right there has some of those lakes and the rivers and in our community here. So the funds that provided for that a huge, huge blessing to us as a staff. The opportunities where we have the waiters hanging in the hallway and the nets hanging in the hallway. So at the beginning of the year, the first graders are going what?
Speaker 2:are those.
Speaker 4:Do we get to use them? And we get to tell them yes, we're going to use them and we usually go out in the fall and we do some activities out there in the fall and then usually in the spring, we get to go out and that's when a lot of the life is happening in the pond there.
Speaker 2:I can recall it's probably been 10 to 15 years ago now we're being out there with someone, uh, also from the soil and water conservation district I believe it was darcy zolman and we were sort of helping leesburg elementary dream about what could be there in those wetlands and we were talking about trails and we were talking about student experiences out there. And now to see that come to fruition through a lot of good work by the folks there at Leesburg Elementary is just and the community supporting it is really fun to see. Because what some schools might consider, oh we just have this wasted part of our property kind of in the back corner it's. You know, nobody really goes back there. It's just kind of a forgotten part of the property. Leesburg correctly saw that as an opportunity for education and then is using that with its teachers and its students and that wetland back there is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2:We can have wetlands be. We've talked about on this podcast already. Wetlands can be sponges and kidneys. They absorb water like a sponge, they can filter water like a kidney. But these wetlands are really important for our lakes. We've got over a hundred lakes here in our county.
Speaker 2:As we already mentioned, important for our lakes.
Speaker 2:We've got over 100 lakes here in our county, as we already mentioned, and either the wetland can serve as the filter as the water is moving through it.
Speaker 2:Maybe there's an inflowing stream and an outflowing stream and the water is being filtered as it's moving through and that's going to be better for the downstream lake than that that stream is going to go to because the water is going to be cleaner because it went through that wetland lake, then that that stream is going to go to because the water is going to be cleaner because it went through that wetland.
Speaker 2:It can also be if the wetland is what we'd call isolated, whereas surface water is coming to that wetland and I believe leesburg's wetland is isolated water is coming there and the water then is infiltrating down into lower layers of soil, percolating down into the groundwater and that groundwater. Then we have a lot of spring-fed lakes around here in northern Indiana, so that groundwater then often will have come from a wetland and so again, that wetland is filtering and allowing that water to slowly move down and then coming back into a lake or a stream through a spring, and so the wetlands are really providing a great service for our lakes by cleaning up the water and providing water downstream.
Speaker 1:And, in Leesburg, an additional function of serving as a classroom for hands-on learning to help create water literate students. Yes, exciting time.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, it's so good for the students to see what they're reading about. Now I don't think as a kid I really understood what a wetland was, and I came here in Indiana in 1976 when I was five and a half, and there are lakes around here. But our students are learning what is a wetland and why we need them Because I think you know sometimes, like you said, oh, we can't build there, we can't do anything there. That's probably was what my thought was when I was growing up. I didn't think about the importance of it. But when we come to the Lilly Center they do talk to us about that. When we're in the room where it's got the what do you call those machines? The topography where they do all that.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, the interactive sand tables, yes, the interaction of the sand tables and we talked about well, would we want to farm up here? Oh, ew, what does a farm produce? Well, we can smell it, we know what it is. Do we want that running down into the lake? And then we can talk about how that practicality of that is, because around Leesburg we have a lot of agriculture as well and like agriculture as well, and that agriculture impacts us as well, and the kids see it when they're riding on their bus.
Speaker 4:So, wow, I did not know any of that. I've learned so much. We always tell the students we, as teachers, are learning as you're learning. There's things that we keep learning and I think they go. Yeah, I don't think you really do, maybe first grade, they believe me, but I have learned so much myself and I'm older. Wow, what you were saying about them growing with that knowledge as they're getting more.
Speaker 1:So you're sparking curiosity in first grade, but just think you are creating lifelong learners. Absolutely, you are one.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yes, and hopefully the kids see that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can model that for our students, can't we?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. You both are working with students. Tell me, how do you see yourself growing water literate students.
Speaker 2:I can start with that. So when we think of the K-12 programs that we have here at the Lilly Center, as well as our college students that are in our environmental science program, water literacy, as the name would suggest, is just understanding how aquatic ecosystems work and how they influence our community, just like reading literacy would be the ability to read and comprehend water literacy future. We need to work with our youngest members of our community so as they move up into places of influence in the future, they're going to make decisions that are beneficial to those lakes and streams, and so water literacy at the youngest grades, first grade for instance, will pay off for our community here in northern Indiana in the future as their business owners and town council members and property owners themselves.
Speaker 4:And I'm thinking from the first grade perspective a lot of our kids go to the sink they turn it on the water comes out yeah I don't know how many of them would be thinking about the importance of it coming out clean, clear or the importance of even that it's there right and that we need.
Speaker 4:You know we do some things with the water cycle. It's all part of what we teach them. But the importance of that water literacy, I think, really comes into play. When we're able to come to the lily center we were able to go out of the wetlands. You know we have the Kosciuszko County Soil and Conservation. Come and do activities with our kids. They're learning not only about the wetlands but how they're getting the water that is so important because we talk to them about you need to be drinking water. Water is important to be drinking. We have our drinking fountains Nowadays. I mean, when I grew up we didn't have water bottles sitting on our desk, but nowadays we do. We encourage kids to drink water and I think giving them all of the background of wow, when you go to our water fountain and you get clear water, do you understand how you get that and the importance of the wetlands and all of what we have where we live.
Speaker 2:Right, and how many places in the world don't have the abundance of fresh water that we have here in Northern Indiana, or have the cleanliness of that water coming right out of something as convenient as a tap? And then I also think about with water literacy and the importance of water. We've done economic analyses of our lakes here in Kosciuszko County and found hundreds of millions of dollars come into our economy every year because of the lakes that we have here, and so it's not only important for survival of being able to drink water, like you were just talking about, but it's also important for our economy going forward. Our lakes are one of the big three contributors to our economy here.
Speaker 1:And if somebody wanted to see that study Nate, where would they find it?
Speaker 2:graceedu. We've got the full research study there as well as a fact sheet which kind of gives the abbreviated information there.
Speaker 1:And if some of our listeners wanted to help support the opportunity for schools to come do field trips to here at the Lilly Center.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you go to our website lakesgraceedu, up at the top is a button you can click to give or to donate and you can designate your funds directly to some of these field trips and these educational experiences that we've been talking about such an important tool for our teachers in our community and such an important resource that the Lilly Center is providing, and all in compliance with state standards for education.
Speaker 4:And I think we benefit from all that you offer for us. But I don't know if sometimes we realize how much we benefit because there aren't a lot of places that have all of this in their community. And wow, we do, and we get to use it and show our students this. My brother lives in Chicago and works with the inner city. They don't get this, what we have, they don't have the opportunity and wow, it's amazing that our kids get to experience this.
Speaker 1:Nate's going to start out handing out college applications to first grade students. That's what he's interested in getting those smart kids to come here. Well, and we know, we do talk.
Speaker 4:It is really. That is, an added benefit of coming to the Lilly Center is introducing our kids to the fact that I'm a Grace alum. So I said this is where I went to college and I learned how to be a teacher and then I've had student teachers. I've had students from the lit classes, the methods of science teaching science classes and I think it gets some of them thinking about that opportunity that's around the corner, which I love.
Speaker 2:College might be for me. The student might be thinking college might be for me in the future. And when they come here to these field trips or when we go into the schools, oftentimes it's with current college students that are interning at the lilly center for lakes and streams in those positions as educators, and so these first graders see a real live college student in front of them, helping them learn about one of these aquatic topics, and they can maybe see in that college student themselves and see, oh, that could be me someday.
Speaker 4:And we have paras in our building that are actually college students, and so one of them said oh, I'm going to be going to work. She was my student teacher two years ago and one of her things that she was doing was she was going to be doing one of the experiences, and it wasn't our grade, that came when she was doing it, but they were like whoa cool. And so then when we came, we got to say this is what she was doing and they make those connections which is so critical for our first graders.
Speaker 1:Thank you, terlene. Thank you so much for being an enthusiastic, vibrant teacher that is really having an impact in the future of our community through the students you're teaching. We just so appreciate the work that you're doing. And Dr Nate, thank you, and the Lilly Center for providing a really valuable resource to our education system here in Kosciuszko County.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's our pleasure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lake Doctor podcast. You can share your thoughts or submit a question by leaving a comment or sending an email to lakes at graceedu.
Speaker 2:Listening to this podcast is just the first step to making your lake cleaner and healthier. Visit lakesgraceedu for more information about our applied research and discover tangible ways you can make a difference on your lake.
Speaker 1:We will see you next time. The Doctor is In.