ESCANABA — The schoolship Utopia, a 77-foot schooner, will be docked at the Escanaba Marina to offer educational programs this week. The vessel, which sailed here from Traverse City, is part of the Inland Seas Education Association (ISEA) program. The schooner is offering two free public dockside programs for children and adults Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. and 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Each program is a hands-on, informational session promoting stewardship of the Great Lakes.

Each program will teach about aquatic ecology, dockside by the schooner. The two-hour programs explore Little Bay de Noc’s water chemistry, plankton, animals, fish, weather conditions, macroinvertebrates, processes and pollutants. Staff from one of the facilitators, Clear Lake Education Center, will also offer fish prints on shore, and children may take home their own fish print.

In small groups, participants will visit several teaching stations on a variety of aquatic ecology topics. Participants will receive a workbook to take home with them including information about what they learned from each station.

The ISEA is a non-profit organization who works to inspire stewardship of the Great Lakes through hands-on, minds-on, experimental learning activities, either on a schooner or dockside. Grand Traverse Bay is home to ISEA’s schooner Utopia. In 2016, the schooner Utopia was donated to Inland Seas and in 2018 Utopia received a major retrofit. ISEA’s other schoolship schooner Inland Seas’ home port is Suttons Bay, Mich.

ISEA organized in 1989 and had over 1,000 participants in the first year. Through the years many participants have learned to be stewards of the Great Lakes. In 1999 students participating in a schoolship program discovered cercopagis, the fishhook water flea, in Lake Michigan.

Interested youth and adults may call Gregg Bruff at 906-202-1329 to make a reservation for one of the sessions Friday. Reservations are required. Only 25 people can attend each program and the list will be compiled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Participants should bring a reusable water bottle and rain gear, as the program will occur rain or shine.

Bruff would like to thank sponsors Escanaba Kiwanis and Rotary along with the Community Foundation of Delta County for their generous contributions that makeb the program possible. The programs are facilitated by Clear Lake Education Center in collaboration with the Canterbury Book Store. The programs are the last portion of the Delta Sense of Place series.