Green Options

An ecologist and an engineer at Michigan State University are working together to create robot fish that can better monitor various factors in aquatic environments.

Combining the brilliance of nature with some top-notch engineering, these two scientists are on to something and getting the funding for it.

The researchers are breaking ground with this and looking to raise water monitoring to another level.

The two guys sailing across the Pacific in a Kon Tiki-style junk made of actual junk aren’t the only ones taking to the waters this month to call attention to how humans how fouled the seas. The annual Canoe Journey of the Coast Salish Nation of Washington state and British Columbia is also getting under way with a science-based environmental mission.

This year’s journey of 100-plus canoes across the Salish Sea to Cowichan First Nation in Duncan, British Columbia, will include five canoes carrying water-quality probes and global positioning systems (GPS) for measuring various aspects of Salish waters: temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, dissolved solids, turbidity and pH. Leading the study will be Sarah Akin, a scientist with the Swinomish Tribe. Two scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey — Eric Grossman and Paul Schuster — are also advising the project at the request of the Coast Salish.

This is the first time the canoe journey has taken on a scientific flavor, but it comes not a moment too soon.