Located on the shores of Lake Itasca — the headwaters of the Mississippi River — Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories (IBSL) offers University of Minnesota students and faculty a living laboratory. Instead of studying ecology strictly through lectures and textbooks, students learn directly in the field.
“Say you’re studying fisheries in a classroom,” says Emily Schilling, Ph.D., associate director of IBSL. “When you come here, you’re actually working with the fish in their natural environment. It’s a very different way of learning.”
At the heart of IBSL’s mission is an ongoing water monitoring program that tracks metrics like temperature, clarity, dissolved oxygen levels and ice cover duration on the lakes in Itasca State Park. With data sets going back to the 1930s, this long-term research provides vital baseline data for understanding how aquatic ecosystems function and change over time — information that helps scientists protect water quality down the Mississippi and across the state.
“It’s important that we understand what’s happening in these more pristine systems like Itasca, to see how our waters should be functioning naturally,” says Schilling.
View the full version of this story on the University of Minnesota Foundation's website.