By Jennifer Tebo
In October 2004, former New York State Assembly Member Richard A.Smith of Hamburg obtained $100,000 in funds to build a community teaching pavilion at the Great Lakes Center for Environmental Research and Education on the waterfront.
The Dick Smith Teaching Pavilion, now complete, is part of Buffalo State College’s plan to be used as a waterfront campus. Students will be able to study the Great Lakes right on the waterfront. The Great Lakes Center is the State University of New York’s only facility to offer a graduate program in Great Lakes Environmental studies.
John J Freidhoff, center manager, said the teaching pavilion was built for BSC students to study on the waterfront, because there were no facilities to accommodate the growing number of students that are interested in Environmental Studies. It is important to students that they can research up close and directly in the environment that they are studying.
“That’s the purpose of this facility, for people to come down here, and they can look at the actual water, and see the beauty of it today. We must remember this historical event, and let’s protect this facility forever,” Smith said.
More than 20 faculty members from different departments make up the Great Lakes Center. They put emphasis on specialties in:
Gordon Fraser, director of the Great Lakes Center, said it is important to have the facility for students studying environmental toxicology, because the Great Lakes still contain contaminated sediment that can affect the community. The lakes are where everyone likes to fish and this can affect people in a big way if the waters are not studied on a regular basis for contamination
Freidhoff said the facility is vital for students and many others since the Great Lakes make up two-thirds of the world’s fresh water.
“We have a water analysis and micro-lab where we research water samples and sediment samples in here and work them up and see what’s going on then,” Freidhoff said.
The center also promotes research with other academic and research institutions in the United States andCanada. They serve Western New York and Southern Ontario as a scientific resource and for enduring education.
Jennifer Tebo can be reached at teboj27@verizon.net
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