Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant

Real-time coastlines, real-world insights. Check out the LIVE feed of Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes State Park Beach – supporting recreationalists, researchers, and the broader public, linked here: https://www.webcoos.org/cameras/indunes/

This work is in partnership between the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA), the Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS), Indiana Dunes State Park, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant with support from Surfline.

Check out IISG’s website for more information on this collaborative project.
• Coastal Monitoring to Enhance Resilience at Indiana Dunes State Park: https://iiseagrant.org/work/coastal-resilience/programs-initiatives/coastal-monitoring-enhancing-resilience-at-indiana-dunes-state-park/

• Watching the Water: Using Cameras to Foster Engagement at Indiana Dunes State Park: https://iiseagrant.org/work/recreation-tourism/programs-initiatives/watching-the-water-using-cameras-to-foster-engagement-at-indiana-dunes-state-park/

Also featured on Seagull and Indiana Coastal Atlas.

Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources
University of Illinois Extension
Southern Lake Michigan Water Safety Task Force
US National Weather Service Chicago Illinois
Save the Dunes
Shirley Heinze Land Trust
Indiana Dunes National Park
Indiana Dunes
Friends of Indiana Dunes, Inc.

Meet IISG grad student scholar, Diana Alejandra Narvaez!

Diana is a PhD student at Purdue University working on something that sounds like science fiction but is very much real: a device that harvests energy from lake waves.

The idea is to use soft, flexible materials that respond to motion and vibration to capture the energy that freshwater waves produce. Ultimately, that energy could power electronics in aquatic environments without batteries or external power sources.

Getting there has not been a straight line. Diana has spent her PhD working through a series of material failures, redesigns, and breakthroughs with each wrong turn revealing something new about how these materials actually behave under water, in motion, and over time.

Right now, she is measuring what is realistically possible. And what she is finding is already interesting.

We are proud to support Diana through the IISG Scholars Program.

Learn more about Diana’s work: https://iiseagrant.org/meet-our-grad-student-scholars-diana-alejandra-narvaez/

Want to become an IISG grad student scholar? Learn more: https://iiseagrant.org/its-time-to-apply-for-the-2026-iisg-graduate-scholars-program/

Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources
National Sea Grant College Program

Meet our Grad Student Scholars: Diana Alejandra Narvaez Meet Our Grad Student Scholars is a series from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) celebrating the students and research funded by our scholars program. To learn more about our faculty and graduate student funding opportunities, visit Fellowships & Scholarships. Diana Alejandra Narvaez is a P

What if your students could send something to the bottom of Lake Superior, and get it back?

This spring, 9 classrooms did exactly that. Through IISG's Shrinking Cup program, students decorated Styrofoam cups, then sent them approximately 290 meters underwater. As water pressure increased with depth, the cups shrank, returning as miniature versions of the originals.

It's Boyle's Law in action: as pressure increases, volume decreases. But more than that, it's science students can hold in their hands, see with their own eyes, and actually remember.

Want to bring this to your classroom? Learn more about the program:
https://iiseagrant.org/education/curriculum-activities/shrinking-cup/



U.S. EPA Great Lakes Region

Meet IISG grad student scholar, Tianle Duan!

Tianle is a third-year PhD student at Purdue University studying something most of us haven't thought about, but probably should: what happens to a city's roads when it floods?

A flooded street isn't just a local problem. Because roads are all connected, a few blocked routes can reshape how everyone moves across an entire city. What looks like a small flood on a map can quietly become a citywide transportation crisis.

Tianle uses remote sensing, aerial imagery, and AI-based flood mapping to track where flooding is happening in near real time, and then overlays that data on road networks to understand which routes are disrupted, which communities get cut off, and how first responders can get where they're needed most.

His work isn’t just about mapping floods, but that they get responded to faster and smarter.

Full story: https://iiseagrant.org/meet-our-grad-student-scholars-tianle-dual-2/

National Sea Grant College Program

Meet our Grad Student Scholars: Tianle Duan Meet Our Grad Student Scholars is a series from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) celebrating the students and research funded by our scholars program. To learn more about our faculty and graduate student funding opportunities, visit Fellowships & Scholarships. Tianle Duan is a third-year Ph

📚 Educators 📚Here's a resource worth bookmarking. North American Association for Environmental Education - NAAEE’s Plastics eeResearch collection brings together six research studies on plastic pollution education going beyond the standard reduce, reuse, recycle framework to explore how we can more meaningfully engage young learners on this topic.

The collection covers strategies for introducing plastic pollution to students from preschool through middle school, grounded in environmental education research.

Whether you're building a unit, looking for new angles on a familiar topic, or just curious what the latest research says, this is worth a look.

Explore the collection: https://eepro.naaee.org/community/research/collections/plastics

Photo credit: NOAA

NOAA Marine Debris
NOAA Education

Plastics | eePRO Plastics Isobel Talks May 18, 2025 Audience Nonformal Educator EE Professional Topic Conservation Share Facebook LinkedIn Pinterest Email Copy URL This collection explores innovative approaches to plastic pollution education beyond traditional knowledge transmission. Research from the UK shows child...

It's officially buoy season! On Saturday, IISG Buoy Specialist Les Warren deployed our Wilmette and Chicago buoys for the 2026 season, and the data is live!

Whether you're a beachgoer checking water temps before a swim, or a researcher tracking wave heights and wind patterns across southern Lake Michigan, our buoys have something for you. They provide continuous, real-time data on water temperature, wave height, wind speed, and more, for free!

Wilmette buoy live data: https://iiseagrant.org/wilmettebuoy/

Chicago buoy live data: https://iiseagrant.org/45198/

Noticing any issues with the data? Please reach out and let us know.

📍 Michigan City buoy coming soon. It's undergoing a full rebuild for 2026 and will be in the water shortly.

Here's to a great season on the lake!

National Sea Grant College Program
University of Illinois Extension
Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources

🌊 May is Water Safety Month, and there's no better time to brush up on what keeps us safe at the beach!

Lake Michigan is incredible for swimming, but dangerous currents near piers and breakwalls can catch even strong swimmers off guard. A little knowledge goes a long way.

Here's what to know before heading out this season:

🚫 Avoid swimming near piers and breakwalls. Stay in designated swim areas
↔️ If caught in a current: swim to the SIDE, not against it, then back to shore
🆘 In danger? Call for someone to throw a life ring or anything that floats

Share this with your family before your first beach trip of the year. It's a quick read that can make all the difference. 💙

🌊 Lake Michigan-specific beach safety resources, videos, and advisories: https://www.lakemichigansafety.org

Michigan Sea Grant
National Sea Grant College Program
NOAA Education
Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources
University of Illinois Extension

Do you do your laundry in a Lake Michigan coastal county? The Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant would like to hear from you! 🧺📣

You can help local researchers better understand outreach needs around laundry wastewater and microfibers that impact our local waterways. The survey will be open until May 15.

Take the survey ➡️ https://illinois.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5zQjDAbSOcBwMTQ?fbclid=IwdGRjcARvMHFjbGNrBG8wa2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHssVOSKlRqlnl81Ja53dCgS0xA7gPC6T039JWhc5cAdxvfjfKsfWRh5p6Nhx