The Lake Ontario Great Lakes Science Practicum: A Model for Training Limnology Students on How to Conduct Shipboard Research in the Great Lakes

The authors designed and led an 8-day limnology practicum conducted on the R/V Lake Guardian that focused on classical and emerging technologies in a series of four inter-dependent teaching modules. The practicum was tied together by a general research question (Are spatial patterns of Lake Ontario productivity a function of distance from the shoreline?), and a guided inquiry approach was used to help students frame testable hypotheses to address this question. Students collected a research-quality data set while participating in the practicum's teaching models, and subsequent to the cruise presented their results as oral papers at research conferences and as research papers. The design of this practicum may provide a useful model for other educators who wish to train the next generation of Great Lakes limnologists by conducting courses on a research vessel.