Duluth, Minnesota four Catholic schools with coverage up to grades 6 or 8, two Protestant schools, two Montessori schools, and six other charter and private schools. Due to its proximity to the Great Lakes, Duluth is the location for the Large Lakes Observatory. The Large Lakes Observatory operates the largest university-owned research vessel in the Great Lakes, the R/V Blue Heron. Built in 1985 for fishing on the Grand Banks, the Blue Heron was purchased by the University of Minnesota in 1997, sailed from Portland, Maine, up the St. Lawrence Seaway to Duluth, and converted into a limnological research vessel during the
Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve county, state, and university entities. The Reserve is sponsored by the Cooperative Extension division of University of Wisconsin-Extension and hosted at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Reserve offices and research facilities are on Barker's Island in Superior Bay, part of the Duluth-Superior harbor. The Lake Superior Reserve site represents a previously unrepresented biogeographic region within the National Estuarine Research Reserve System – the Great Lakes, Lake Superior subregion. The Lake Superior Reserve and the Old Woman Creek (Lake Erie in Ohio) are the only Great Lakes freshwater estuaries in the Reserve System. This subregion contains all of Lake Superior and its