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Students help battle invasive species in Lake Superior

HOUGHTON, Mich. (WLUC) - Keweenaw Peninsula students are doing their part in the battle against invasive species in Lake Superior.

The Dollar Bay High School Soar Enterprise Team sailed out to Isle Royale on Tuesday to test devices they built this school year.

“Their main solution is for when they need to -- the community organizations need to investigate what's going on below the surface, usually visually,” Marine Robotics Teacher Matt Zimmer said. “The students develop an ROV, a remote-operated vehicle. It's a robot that drops below the surface of the water, and then has a live camera on it, and the students can drive the ROV and have it navigate below the surface to view what they need to view."

The ROVs will be used in place of divers to monitor the zebra mussel population. Rangers want to stop the invasive species from spreading to inland lakes where they could flourish and displace native mussels.