This proposal to fund a research training cruise on the University of Minnesota's R/V Blue Heron for early career scientists from the Great Lakes basin. The proposed work will have two goals: 1) teach early career lacustrine scientists how to acquire, plan for, and manage cruises aboard UNOLS ships, possibly having some impact on the long-term decrease in requests for ship time on UNOLS ships in general; and 2) expose members of the Great Lakes scientific community, which has an abysmally low submittal rate of proposals to NSF requesting UNOLS ships, to UNOLS and the academic fleet. This project mirrors the successful Chief Scientist training program that Dr. Claire Reimers at Oregon State University has run on ocean-going ships such as the R/V Wecoma, New Horizon and Endeavor. Intellectual Merit : The training cruise envisioned herein will allow early career scientists to collect seed data and test hypotheses for future proposals to NSF. Broader Impacts : This proposal intends to educate the next generation of researchers about the capabilities of UNOLS. This type of outreach between UNOLS and potential users is not only important for the broader scientific community, but doubly important for the Great Lakes community which seems resistant to using assets like the UNOLS fleet.
