Learning for Life
A Stone Lab Biological Field Station Assistant led the science cruise with Utica High School Science Club students.
For many, Stone Lab, Ohio State’s island campus on Lake Erie, is more than just a place to take some summer classes that doesn’t involve sitting in a lecture hall. It’s a way of life that gets in your bones and stays with you from the first time you step off a boat onto the Gibraltar Island docks.
Stone Lab experiences often start with a field trip for kids as young as fifth grade. The Lake Erie Science Field Trip Program takes students out onto the lake for a fish trawl and water sampling session before bringing them back to the lab to dissect their catch and analyze their water samples under microscopes. Additional activities include everything from a plant walk around the island to meeting some of Stone Lab’s reptilian residents.
For many of the students, it’s the first time they get to experience science beyond reading about it in a book.