Trail Creek Watershed Partnership

04/02/2026

Hey Teachers! This is an absolutely fantastic opportunity! Take a look!

Spend a spring day at the Paul H. Douglas Center in Miller Woods at Indiana Dunes National Park!

This hands-on PD is designed for 3rd–5th grade educators and includes a guided tour, a habitat hike through dunes and wetlands, and interactive STEAM activities focused on Great Lakes ecosystems.

Learn about in-person and virtual field trip opportunities, explore tools like Great Lakes Odyssey, and connect with park partners offering programs for your students.

To register, please complete this form: https://forms.gle/AKiCxaDWSsC8nesM9 by April 20th, 2026.

This project is made possible by the National Park Foundation in collaboration with Save the Dunes and the Indiana Dunes National Park.

04/02/2026

This is your opportunity to comment on The Waste, Inc. Landfill Superfund Site in Michigan City. Read more here:
https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0501630

2026 will be a busy year for EPA’s Superfund program in the Midwest!

We will be conducting five-year reviews at 50 Superfund sites across our region. These check-ups are part of the monitoring plan for longer term cleanups where waste is managed or treated onsite, to ensure that the cleanups are doing their job—protecting communities, drinking water and ecosystems. Details about these reviews, opportunities to submit a comment, and the final reports will all be available on each site’s profile page.

Look up sites near you in:
: https://spgv.io/61838EFt

: https://spgv.io/61848EFQ

: https://spgv.io/61858EFv

: https://spgv.io/61868EFa

: https://spgv.io/61878EFx

: https://spgv.io/61888EFI

12/04/2025

The gales of November may come early, but, as usual, the nominations for the Lakies are right on time along with our official call for nominations!

Brought to you by the Teach Me About the Great Lakes podcast, The Lakies (aka "quite possibly not the least prestigious Great Lakes-focused awards ceremony there is”) are back.

Our goal isn't to be the Official Arbiters of Quality, but to host a fun celebration of amazing Great Lakes-related research, outreach, and communication in the inimitable Teach Me style.

Nomination categories are:
-Great Lakes Science Communication of the Year
-Great Lakes Outreach Program of the Year
-Great Lakes News Event of the Year
-Great Lakes Research Finding of the Year
-Coolest Thing You Learned Listening to TMATGL in 2025
-Science Podcast of the Year (Non-TMATGL edition)
-Great Lakes Animal of the Year
-Great Lakes Non-Animal of the Year
-Great Lakes Sandwich of the Year
-Great Lakes Donut of the Year

The Details:
-Deadline: Nominations close on December 4th.
Process: It's easy (just enter the name/title and a link).
-Self-Nominations: Highly encouraged. Don't be shy.

We’d love to get a broad swath of work across both the serious and less-serious categories to celebrate. Feel free to pass the link on to interested people: https://bit.ly/Lakies25

12/04/2025

Check out this new resource! Lampreys of the Great Lakes poster! Very cool, Great Lakes Fishery Commission !!!

New poster alert! We just released "Lampreys of the Great Lakes" with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, available now in our store. And now is the perfect time to order with our holiday discount (**get 20% off your order with promo code HOLIDAY20 through December 18**)! https://buff.ly/PLDvGnK

12/04/2025

Are you a high school teacher? Mentor a group of high schoolers? Check out the Indiana Envirothon! Its a fantastic extra-curriculuar academic competition focused on environmental issues. The Northwest Indiana Contest will be held at Red Mill County Park in March. Reach out to the LaPorte County Soil and Water Conservation District to register your team!

Do you have your five member teams together in anticipation of the 2026 Indiana Envirothon competition? Registration for regionals is now open. Objectives and resources for the competition are on the website, under resources.

New rules for the 2026 competition are being reviewed and will be up shortly. There are many changes for this coming year's competition.

08/20/2025

08/15/2025

Attention Teachers!
Registration E-mails for our annual FREE Environmental Education Event-Trail Creek Week-will be in your inbox in the morning. We can't wait to welcome you to the Creek September 15-19! And don't forget the Creekness Stakes, our annual fund-raiser for Trail Creek Week! Hope to see you there.

07/18/2025

07/09/2025

Learn about our native lamprey!

the GLFC has a fact sheet about the five Great Lakes lamprey species?

Though invasive sea lampreys in the Great Lakes are well known, the Great Lakes are also home to four native lamprey species: the silver, chestnut, American brook, and northern brook lampreys, all of which are important to Great Lakes ecosystems. Two of the native lamprey species are non-parasitic (the American brook and northern brook lampreys) and two are parasitic (the silver and chestnut lampreys). The parasitic lampreys are much smaller than invasive sea lampreys, and therefore, do not impact Great Lakes fish in the same, devastating manner.

For those that fish the Great Lakes and their tributaries, we hope this fact sheet serves as a helpful guide so that, when a lamprey species is spotted, anglers can distinguish between invasive sea lampreys (which should NOT be returned to the water alive) and native lampreys (which should be returned safely back to the water).

Click the link below to view and print the “Lampreys of the Great Lakes” fact sheet:
https://www.glfc.org/pubs/factsheets/LampreysoftheGLFactSheet_Web.pdf

If you want to learn more about invasive sea lampreys and our native lampreys, check out our website www.sealamprey.org, and for more educational materials, check out our For Educators webpage https://glfc.org/educators.php. And be sure to keep watching for our weekly posts!

07/08/2025

Pat was friend to Trail Creek and Lake Michigan and he will be deeply missed. He was a steadfast advocate for clean water and recreation. God speed, Pat!!
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/lpheralddispatch/name/patrick-donoghue-obituary?id=58764008&fbclid=IwY2xjawLZRVtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHmAUD3b4PkiWkU65rz9Ag66q6Gjt0NPSig7nIrvXfwpNCNdjVph2fKnIqNNJ_aem_Jn3KZYHWA7WiyxYiLkrsvA

05/06/2025

We’re thrilled to share that the Trail Creek Watershed Partnership has received a $5,000 Environmental Action Grant from NIPSCO and the NiSource Charitable Foundation! This support will help us expand our programming during Trail Creek Week 2025 and further strengthen our ongoing efforts to connect people with the creek through education, conservation, and community events.

Thank you to NIPSCO and NiSource for investing in place-based learning on Trail Creek. Let’s keep this momentum going!