- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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MV Haendel
"Everything drains to the lake. We're trying to give kids a sense of that. If you just look at the physical nature of our watershed, it's a giant bath tub. And everything drains down into this bath tub. It doesn't matter what it is, it's going to get into the lake. These cruises really give kids a sense of how these things tie together." The Floating Classroom is in its third year and already has 20 cruises scheduled for this summer.
IO members, looking for ways to increase awareness of Cayuga Lake as a natural resource, had heard of similar programs on other lakes. "It came to our attention that we were missing a big opportunity on the lake," says Leopold. "That was to provide some kind of watershed protection educational program. There was no such thing on Cayuga Lake." So they invited a representative from the Lake George project to come speak to them, then sent representatives to go out on their boat. "We loved the idea," Leopold says.
Now all they needed was a boat. That's where Dennis Montgomery of the Cayuga Wooden Boat Works came in. Montgomery is an enthusiastic supporter of the canal system who loves to travel around on it. He builds and refurbishes boats. Leopold recalls, "He came to us and said, 'I think I could get a boat. You put a program together and let's work on this.' He found a boat on Lake Champlain and motored it here all the way down through the canal system. That is the MV Haendel." They came up with a cooperative agreement. Montgomery owns and runs the boat, and the IO pays for him to operate the classroom cruises. Montgomery also uses the boat for private cruises, notably at the Ithaca Farmer's Market on weekends.
The boat was originally built to Army Corps specifications as a research vessel in New York Harbor, then was retired to Lake Champlain as a water Taxi in the park system. It has an upper deck where passengers can sit, and a below-deck cabin with two workstations. That makes it perfect for the floating classroom project. The program's main educator is Bill Foster, formerly of the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network and now with Cayuga Nature Center. Teachers and volunteers also teach on the boat. Leopold says they average about 600 kids per year, with a recent high of 800.
 Kids perform an experiment in the Lake. "A Secchi Disk is a water clarity device," Leopold explains. "It's a metal disk painted in black and white quadrants. As you drop it in the water, the rope that it's on is marked in meters. As it goes down it will disappear from view. At that point you measure the length of rope to the Secchi disk, and that will give you an index of turbidity, of clarity in the water. You can tell how much sediment is in the water and use that as a point of discussion. Is turbidity a good thing or a bad thing? Should water be absolutely crystal clear? What's going on in a lake that might make water either clear or not clear? It's not all bad." |
"This is a very hands on experience where kids get out and actually get to do stuff on the boat," Leopold says. "They go out there and they stop the boat and drift." Kids study water temperature, clarity, pH tests to find the relative acidity of the lake, and turbidity. They learn the history of the lake and how land use practices affect it.
They are also starting to provide storm water education. State funding is being used to help promote better land management practices that will contribute to more clarity in the lake by reducing pollutants running into it. Some schools or camps pay for the cruise but the IO funds most. This allows groups of kids to experience the lake who might not otherwise be able to afford it.
"Once you're out in the middle of the lake you can really see the land use practices, you can see where the farming is, you can see where the housing is, you can see the sensitive areas. You can see what'[s coming out of the creeks, because you can actually motor past these out falls. There's a lot of testing and monitoring you can do."
In addition to Leopold and other Lansing board members, Lansing kids have made great use of the Haendel. About two years ago the 7th grade went on the cruise. Lansing kids have also gone through the Cooperative Extension and Rural Youth, and the Lansing Yorkers went out to research lake history.
The IO partners with other organizations including Wells College to expand the reach of their programs. They are with the Community Science Institute that is monitoring creeks around the lake. "They are learning how to sample water and look at water quality issues in running water in our tributaries," Leopold says. "They're now going to work on Salmon Creek using the Floating Classroom as the final reward, where you can go out to the mouth and actually observe where the water meets the lake and do testing there."
The organization provides materials to teachers, and is updating its Web site with interactive pages that will allow students to upload their data after their cruise. It will go to a central spreadsheet with results other kids gathered that will show them long term trends or comparative data. The Web site will also have forms teachers can download and print to help students prepare before going out on the boat.
The IO has more plans for expanding their reach. In the future the boat may take cruises from Taughannock Falls State Park and elsewhere on the lake. Cayuga Wooden Boatworks has dock space in Cayuga. They hope to be able to use the location as a base to serve some of the northern school systems.
"For a lot of kids who have never been on the lake it's a wonderful experience," says Leopold. "Our goal is to teach them the value of the lake and how to protect it. That's really the bottom line."
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