JACKSON TWNSP—Unlike George Costanza in the classic “Seinfeld” episode, Kyle Johnson truly wants to become a marine biologist.

The soon-to-be senior at Grantsburg High School has been a part of the high school’s biology summer research and dive team since the summer between his sophomore and junior year.

“I was thinking ‘doctor’ when it came to careers,” Johnson pointed out. “After the first summer I did this, I thought ‘This is something I’d like to do for my career.’”

A lot of that credit goes to Matt Berg, Johnson’s biology teacher.

“Mr. Berg is really into his work — he really knows his stuff,” Johnson noted. “Plus, he makes it fun — he makes it like it isn’t work.”

Johnson isn’t the first to experience the effect.

“A lot of kids go through his classes and then want to pursue some type of career in biology,” Johnson continued.

So the summer research lab and the dive team are kept busy all summer. A perfect example is the trip the dive team made to Ham Lake earlier in July.

“Ham Lake has had Eurasian water milfoil for quite a few years,” Berg noted. “The lake does not have great habitat for milfoil — it will grow and spread, but it won’t completely take over the lake.”

He said Ham is a beautiful lake.

“It’s not uncommon to have 10-feet of visibility in that lake,” Berg praised.

All the more reason to protect the lake, and that’s where the dive team comes into the picture.

In the summer of 2009, the Department of Natural Resources and Burnett County Invasive Species specialist Brad Morris, completed an aquatic plant survey of Ham Lake. The survey provided a complete mapping of the weed species in the lake.

Berg then compiled all the data on computerized maps that form the basis for future lake management. The results are available to the public and Ham Lake property owners.

Berg now monitors the lake two or three times a year and identifies individual plants by GPS points that need to be treated. The goal is to minimize use of chemicals by spot treating individual plants.

“It has significantly reduced the cost to lake property owners,” Ham Lake resident Maury Miller explained. “It is now costing approximately $5,000 per year to manage the lake.”

In the winter of 2009, Berg suggested some hands-on experience at the lake.

“Matt suggested last winter that it might be a worthwhile project for the Grantsburg High School dive team to spend a day or so at the lake,” Miller recalled. “The Ham Lake Association Board thought that was a terrific idea — both for the lake and the young divers.”

“I thought it would be a great way for my divers to get some experience,” Berg added.

That day came earlier this month.

The cost to Ham Lake for the day’s efforts was $500.

“It is a great investment both in the lake and in the students,” Miller said.

“We had a group on the lake for about three and a half hours,” Berg explained. “They pulled about 400 to 500 plants in the Seiben Bay area of the lake.”

Berg said the plants were bagged underwater so they wouldn’t break into small fragments,

“Those little fragments will grow into a 3-foot plant in five years,” he pointed out.

Jessica Ilgen, Andy Falk, Robbie Finch, Jon Radtke, Gavin Meyer, Kyle Johnson and Ben Davis were members of the dive team who volunteered at Ham Lake.

“What impressed me most was the class, camaraderie, humor, and maturity of the young Grantsburg students,” Miller noted. “The students’ positive and respectful relationship with their teacher, Matt Berg, was a delight to observe.”

“I asked Matt when they finished if this was one of his more fun days,” Miller continued. “He told me, ‘We have fun every day.’”

“The kids have done some really good work,” Berg expressed. “I got the project set-up, but they’ve really been doing the work.”

“Jon Radtke, Tabitha Wanless and Laissa Miller are the kids who have really taken the lead on things,” he continued.

In fact, the summer biology class has taken on a new mussel project.

“Jon harvested fish from the St. Croix River — he had to catch these fish a couple of months ago so they could be quarantined for the proper amount of time,” Berg explained. “Now we should be able to get mussels from these fish.”

Berg said their project collaborators are working with GHS to try to find the fish host for the Wartyback mussel. The Brown bullhead is a strong possibility, and this species is much rarer than the more common Black and Yellow bullheads.

“Our partners only had one fish to test in their labs so Jon went out to a lake where he knew there were Brown bullheads, caught five for the lab and we’ve been holding them ever since so when we get gravid mussels (“pregnant”), we can place the babies on the fish and see if they will serve as hosts,” Berg explained.

Working with mussels has been a big part of the summer research class.

“We find host fish for mussels — we’ve even gone on three-day canoe trips looking for mussels,” Johnson explained. “When we find them, we bring them back to the classroom.”

“Some people think the dive team is a way to go out, have fun and do some SCUBA diving, but these are serious projects,” he continued. “We are doing research which will help at the state level, maybe even the national level.”