1. Emerson Schwarz

2. Global Location and Climate The Great Lakes are located in northeast north America along the United States of America – Canada boarder. The conditions for climate are warm summers and cool winters, with the lakes influencing the amount of snow in the winter.

3. Flora One of the common plants is the white pine These used to be more common, until logging operations in the 1850’s to 1890’s cleared out many of them One way that survive is that reforestation efforts have allowed the trees to be able to grow back to a more healthy population size.

4. Fauna One of the most common plants is the carnation, which happens to be our state flower. One way that they are well suited is due to the fact that this is Ohio's state plant, they are well taken care of and have well adapted to the environment due to the fact that it has been in the climate for the last 2,000 years.

5. That’s the value? The Great Lakes provides fresh water for all of the northeast north America region. It also holds 21% of the worlds drinking water. Without the lakes, we would be facing water problems for the region. Cities like Cleveland and Detroit would be in even more trouble due to the lost shipping lanes and inexpensive ways of transporting steel, raw minearls, and other bulk materials of shipments.

6. Cool Research!! One major problem faced in the great lakes region is the invasive species that is the zebra muscle. The NOAA, or National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration, is leading the effort on this research. The NOAA is trying to figure out a way on how to get rid of, or reduce the number of zebra muscle. They research by diving down and collecting samples, taking them back to a lab, and studying how quickly they grow and see how many there are in a given area. Through this research, it can be possible to find a way to stop the spread of these zebra mussels.

7. Work sited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_mussel http://www.great- lakes.net/teach/envt/flora/flora_1.html http://www.great- lakes.net/teach/envt/flora/flora_4.html http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/Programs/ais/