The 2023 Lakeshore Water Summit at the UW-Green Bay, Manitowoc Campus provided high school students involved in UW-Green Bay’s Freshwater Scholars Summer Research Program with the opportunity to present the results of their work in water-based projects. They also learned about the results of summer water quality monitoring in streams around the county, which UW-Green Bay undergraduates perform in collaboration with community members and citizen groups in Manitowoc County.
Presenting his findings helped high schooler Codey Lai feel like he was contributing to his community.
The annual event included high school student scholars who completed internships with support from the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin. They presented their work in a poster session and shared their experiences with community members, educators, and water science professionals from the Lakeshore region.
The high school students also learned about one of the opportunities for undergraduate research at UW-Green Bay. The Manitowoc campus “Stream Team,” a group of eight undergraduate students and one high school Freshwater Scholar, presented on their work in the lab of UW-Green Bay professors Becky Abler and Rick Hein to monitor and analyze water quality in four Manitowoc County streams throughout the summer. The summit, hosted in partnership with the Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership, highlighted this work in a one-hour oral presentation following the poster session.
Two of the Freshwater Scholars featured during the summit were Codey Lai and Gail Wery. Lai, a senior at Two Rivers High School, worked with Hein and Abler on watershed monitoring. Wery, a senior at Green Bay Southwest High School, worked on fisheries research with Titus Seilheimer from Wisconsin Sea Grant.
High schooler Gail Wery will also present her work at the 2024 Watershed Symposium at UW-Green Bay next spring.
“My favorite thing about the research this summer was the opportunity to make connections with my fellow environmental science and biology majors,” Lai says. “Presenting our research to the community was a wonderful experience, as I felt that I was contributing to community change for better environmental practices.”
The Freshwater Scholars program is part of UW-Green Bay’s ongoing work, supported in part by the Freshwater Collaborative, to recruit and train students to become water professionals.
As a child in Chaska, Minn., Madeline Behrens loved rocks and minerals, animals and being outside, but her passion for the environment went dormant in high school when her focus changed to computer sciences courses.
She enrolled at Minnesota State University, Mankato, as a computer science major but quickly realized a career behind a desk wasn’t for her.
“It didn’t spark any joy in me,” says Behrens, who began looking at other options. “Environmental science and earth studies popped out at me. Reading through the classes sparked my passion for the environment again.”
She switched her major second semester. The following fall, a biology professor shared a flyer about summer internship opportunities through UW Oshkosh, which were supported by a Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin grant. Behrens was intrigued and reached out to Greg Kleinheinz, professor and director of UW Oshkosh’s Environmental Research & Innovation Center (ERIC), to learn more.
Behrens worked with the WDNR to inform beach closures.
“It sounded really cool. It would get me fieldwork and lab experience,” she says.
Behrens chose to intern with the marine debris and water quality monitoring group in Door County. She spent the summer with a team of six students, collecting water samples at about 40 beaches. They recorded E. coli levels and worked with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to put out advisories and beach closures when necessary. She also conducted well water testing for the public.
Behrens also spent time on the marine debris mitigation boat. The students removed about 6,300 pounds of trash, ranging from small plastic pieces and shotgun wadding to large items such as stoves, dishwashers, trashcan lids, and giant tractor tires.
The debris the students removed from Door County is just a fraction of the trash that makes its way into the water every season. Certain areas in Green Bay trapped large amounts of garbage daily. Behrens says it was sometimes disheartening to spend hours cleaning an area only to find more trash the next day, but overall, she felt good about her job.
“Someone needs to clean up debris to give people an idea of how much trash is in the water. Seeing the pictures and hearing the numbers of trash pulled from an area around you establishes more of a personal reason for caring about the environment,” she says. “One of the most important steps in the process of marine debris cleanup is bringing awareness to people. If people know the environmental effects of marine debris, maybe next time they will think twice before dumping trash off the side of their boat.”
In areas like Renard Island, formerly known as Kidney Island, trash accumulates in crevices and had to be removed by hand.
The summer research experience in Door County reinforced Behrens’ desire to work in environmental science. After learning that the retirement of two Mankato faculty might delay her ability to take key classes she would need to graduate, she transferred to UW Oshkosh.
“I liked the campus and the town,” she says. “The class list offered a lot of variety in the areas I’m interested in.”
Behrens is now in her first semester at UW Oshkosh and is pleased with her decision. In October, she presented her marine debris research at the Great Lakes Beach Association Conference. Next semester she hopes to work in the ERIC lab to gain additional hands-on experience — and she should graduate on time and ready for a career in water.
“I’m in a good spot and should finish in four years,” she says. “I’m not sure of my job path, so I’m taking a variety of environmental science classes. I’m leaning toward water quality but am also interested in toxicology.”
Freshwater Collaborative funding helps to support UW Oshkosh’s efforts to hire multiple students each summer to conduct water-quality field research in Door and Manitowoc Counties, collect plastics and conduct microplastic research, and conduct well water testing at various locations, including the ERIC lab. Interested students should contact Greg Kleinheinz at kleinhei@uwosh.edu. Students from any university are welcome to apply.
Western Wisconsin is becoming a hub for preparing for careers in water industries, thanks in part to two cross-campus collaborations — a high school summer camp and an advanced field course for upper-level college students — involving UW-Eau Claire, UW Oshkosh, UW-River Falls and UW-Stout.
Faculty from the four campuses embarked on this growing partnership — funded by the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin — three years ago when they piloted a high school summer camp. In its third summer in 2023, faculty worked with the Department of Public Instruction to promote the opportunity to students throughout the state of Wisconsin. As a result, the camp grew from 14 students from the Eau Claire area the first year to 23 students from nine high schools across Wisconsin, including seven students from the Milwaukee and Madison areas.
High school students came from across the state to get hands-on experience in water research.
Camp participants learn about wetlands, fish, invasive species, Great Lakes beaches and contamination, and academic programs and careers focused on water science. Each day is spent in a different location, where they are taught by faculty from the four universities. The idea is to help high school students experience what it’s like to work in water science and to share what the UW schools have to offer in terms of hands-on coursework and internships that will prepare them to enter Wisconsin’s workforce — where their skills are critically needed.
“It’s good for students to have exposure to a variety of instructors from different campuses,” says Sarah Vitale, associate professor at UW-Eau Claire and the lead faculty member for the summer camp project. “They can learn they can get a really good job in this field with a bachelor’s degree, or if they go in this direction a master’s degree is recommended. Getting this kind of advice early helps them make decisions.”
The program has evolved to give students more applicable experience and an opportunity to meet and work alongside undergraduate students who are part of other Freshwater Collaborative-projects. For example, while at UW-Stout last summer, students worked in the field with research students funded by the Red Cedar Basin Monitoring Project.
Many of the same faculty are involved in the advanced fieldwork course for undergraduates.
“The high school course showcases the excellent curriculum and research opportunities available to students should they choose to attend a UW school in western Wisconsin while the undergraduate course diversifies student experiences,” says Nicole Hayes, assistant professor of biology at UW-Stout. “UW-Stout students gain valuable insights from working with professors from UW-Eau Claire, UW Oshkosh and UW-River Falls.”
The two-week advanced course immerses students in wide variety of applicable fieldwork to prepare them for different kinds of jobs. For example, they did a remote sensing analysis on Lake Menomin and then used what they learned to analyze a body of water near their hometown or where they vacation in the summer. They also learned about wetlands and how they are integrated with groundwater, storm water, soils, and surface waters.
Abbigale Coffin, an environmental biology and ecology major at UW-Eau Claire, took the course in 2022 and was a teaching assistant for it in 2023. The course opened her eyes to how interconnected ground and surface waters are, and she gained the confidence and knowledge to perform tests and handle equipment independently.
“The amount of hands-on experience really prepares you for working and collecting data in the field,” Coffin says. “All the knowledge I gained from this class at least doubled the list of skills on my resume and allowed me to discover my passion for protecting our state’s ground and surface water.”
The Freshwater Collaborative recently granted new funds to continue years four and five of the high school camp and years three and four of the advanced fieldwork summer course for undergraduates. The group will continue to enhance both courses, tapping into the strengths of each university and refining the curriculum to ensure it has direct application to the workforce. The advanced course is also intended to be part of future certificate programs the Freshwater Collaborative plans to roll out.
“It’s been exciting to see this cross-campus collaboration grow and connect with other projects we are funding,” says Marissa Jablonski, executive director for the Freshwater Collaborative. “It is a great example of how we are creating a pipeline to jobs by implementing programs that recruit young people to UW schools and then provide them with hands-on experiences that train them for the water workforce.”
When it comes to freshwater research, where better to get hands-on experience than at one of the University of Wisconsin campuses?
In summer 2023, 31 undergraduates from Wisconsin, California, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Illinois, Alabama and Virginia participated in the Freshwater@UW Summer Research Opportunities Program, gaining valuable research, career-building and life experiences.
Led by UW-Madison, the program is supported by the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Sea Grant, Water@UW-Madison, the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute and the UW-Madison Graduate School.
“The program’s central aim is to support the growth of our freshwater research enterprise and freshwater workforce through collaborative, cross-system programming designed to train, recruit, retain and diversify the next generation of freshwater professionals,” says Alison Mikulyuk, the program coordinator.
The program began as a pilot in 2022 and expanded to include any UW campus in 2023. This year, students participated in research at one of seven UW institutions: UW-Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay, UW-La Crosse, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW Oshkosh and UW-Superior.
Students accepted into the research program were matched with faculty whose interests match their own. They participated in a weeklong orientation in Madison and spent the remainder of the summer conducting paid hands-on research at their chosen campus. In addition to working one-on-one with faculty and graduate student mentors, students met in person and online each week to discuss career paths, navigating graduate school, communicating science, public service and research practices.
To close out the summer, the cohort presented the results of their hard work at the Summer Research Symposium at UW-Madison in August. Each scholar presented a research flash talk to an audience of more than 100, followed by a research poster session that was well-attended by their mentors, family, and members of the public.
“I was extremely impressed by the work these young researchers presented,” Mikulyuk says. “It was a fantastic representation of the variety and quality of freshwater research conducted in our state.”
During the summer, the students were asked to reflect in writing on their experience as a Freshwater@UW Scholar. Below are edited sections of what a few of the students had to say about their experiences in the program. Longer reflections will be posted to the Sea Grant blog over the next months.
“One of my favorite parts of this experience was being able to interact closely with faculty from a university that was not my own. This experience gave me the opportunity to learn things that I would not have had the chance to learn at my university and opened my eyes to the various fields of geology. Being able to interact with students from different universities was also beneficial, as I was able to hear what others’ college experiences were like, as well as the research being conducted at other universities.” ~ Samantha Krueger, UW-Whitewater, conducted research at UW-Madison and won a Best Talk Award at the symposium
Chloe Mellgren enjoyed talking about water science at Lake Superior Day. Photo by Erica Majumder and Dama Rodreguez
“Being in the lab and sampling is something I love, but this summer, I realized I also enjoy outreach. I had never experienced an outreach event before, but I was given the opportunity to travel to Superior, Wisconsin, for Lake Superior Day. This was one of the first times in my life that I got to talk to people at a big event who all have the same passion for the environment.” ~ Chloe Mellgren, Carthage College in Kenosha, conducted research at UW-Madison and won a Best Talk Award at the symposium
“Through my research, I learned a lot about the potential of using industrial byproducts to create sustainable solutions to environmental problems. My favorite part of the program was meeting and interacting with faculty and students from UW-Green Bay, as it allowed me to learn from experts in the field and gain new perspectives on my research.” ~ Su Than Thar, Ripon College, conducted research at UW-Green Bay
Kara Eppard, an undergraduate from Bridgewater College in Virginia, utilizes Horiba XploRA Plus RAMAN microscope. Photo by Jamie Velkoverh
“Outside of my time conducting research, the program also provided me many opportunities for professional development. I gained insight into grad school. I also got to learn about career opportunities present with federal employment. I am so thankful for the freshwater program and all the knowledge and experiences it provided me!” ~ Kara Eppard, Bridgewater College in Virginia, conducted research at UW-Madison with USGS
“I enjoyed the fact that I was able to meet and collaborate with other students this summer. I will forever remember this experience and go on to make great use of the skills I acquired from the program.” ~ Ryan Waln, UW-Whitewater, conducted research at UW-Green Bay
In July 2023, Freshwater Collaborative granted nearly $600,000 to UW-Madison to continue the Freshwater@UW Summer Research Opportunities Program for its third and fourth years. The funding will provide immersive, hands-on mentored research experiences to 27 undergraduates to participate in summer research at one of the 13 UW institutions.
With a grant from the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, three undergraduates from UW-Stout were trained to collect and analyze water samples as part of renewed efforts to monitor restoration efforts in the Red Cedar Basin Watershed, which has high levels of phosphorus pollution. The project brings together UW-Stout faculty from biology and applied social science as well as external partners like the City of Menomonie, Dunn County Land and Water Conservation, and the Red Cedar River Watershed Division of UW-Extension. Read more about the project.
Here’s what students said about their experience.
Kal Breeden, environmental science sophomore
Dylan Kostuch, May 2023 applied science graduate
Britney Serafina, May 2023 environmental science graduate
Why did you choose to participate in this research project?
Serafina: I chose to participate in this research project to broaden my experience and to take on a new opportunity. I thought it would be interesting to have research experience in water quality locally – especially with the reputation that the local lakes have.
What was your role in the project?
Breeden: My role was to conduct field data collection, analysis, and experimentation with my fellow student researchers. Our goal was to gather a large amount of data about the water quality of streams and lakes within the watershed, where data may have previously been sparse in many locations. Most days we were outdoors either in streams or lakes, but some days we worked in the labs at UW-Stout doing experiment setup, data entry, and macroinvertebrate identification. At each stream or lake site we visited we would collect data about the water quality including dissolved oxygen, temperature, turbidity, nutrient content, habitat assessment scores, macroinvertebrate samples, and more. UW-Stout professors instructed us about what data we should collect, sites to visit, methodology, and water-quality experiments to conduct.
What skills did you learn?
Kostuch: I learned a variety of stream and lake sampling methods and how to use the respective equipment involved. I also learned how to perform filtration tests with the lake samples collected to test for levels of chlorophyll. I learned much more about freshwater ecosystems than I had before this past summer. All three of us worked together to collect data and samples throughout the summer, and I was responsible for analyzing and putting together the poster about our data related to Lakes Menomin and Tainter.
Serafina: I learned many skills working on this project. I used many tools and pieces of equipment that I have never used before such as an inflatable boat, a Van Dorn, a dissolved oxygen meter, a PAR light meter, and a flow meter. Other than equipment, it was an awesome opportunity to learn how to use and operate an inflatable boat. I also was able to learn much more about our local water quality and improve my GIS skills.
What has been your favorite part about conducting this research?
Kostuch: My favorite part of this research has been traveling to different sites to collect data and working with my colleagues and professors. It was interesting to see firsthand how the algal blooms developed over the course of the summer.
Breeden: I really enjoyed wading in the streams, many of them were in restoration areas and surrounded by nature. I also enjoyed gaining experience with both fieldwork and lab work and found that I liked having a balance between the two.
Serafina: I have a lot of fun memories from over the summer with Kal and Dylan from sampling. Being able to make a lot of connections whether it be friends, professors, or Research in the Rotunda was my favorite part of this research.
What was the most challenging part?
Breeden: For me, the most challenging part of this project was feeling unsure of how to begin with certain aspects of the research or data analysis. Having only one year of college experience at the time I joined this project, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge or experience with research projects and what it’s like to come up with certain questions that you want to try to answer, or trends you want to explore, and then forming a plan and methodology to go about it. Thankfully we had the guidance of the UW-Stout professors who helped to lead us in the right direction. I learned a lot about what is possible in a project like this and how to form a plan that will lead to useful and meaningful research.
What kind of career do you hope to go into after graduation?
Kostuch: As of now I plan to pursue a career working in a cell biology or molecular biology lab. I have a deep interest in virology and viruses and may even attend graduate school in the future. After this summer experience, I also have a greater interest in limnology and water quality. Should I pursue limnology, the hands-on field experience and lab time will be a great boon.
Breeden: I hope to begin a career in environmental conservation, and this experience has given me many valuable skills that will help me to reach my goals. I feel very confident with the amount of work experience that I’ve gained through this project, particularly from conducting both fieldwork and lab work, and am excited to enter the workforce and continue working on meaningful research projects like this one.
Serafina: I currently have a job lined up as a Land Resource Technician for Chippewa County. This experience has already helped me attain my career goals by giving me the confidence and experience for finding new job opportunities. I am glad that I was able to have this experience.
The Red Cedar Watershed in west-central Wisconsin is one of the most highly impacted watersheds in Wisconsin. The Red Cedar River was listed as an EPA impaired water in 1998, and Tainter Lake and Lake Menomin have been listed as highly impaired since 1972 due to high levels of phosphorus pollution, which depresses local property values and the tourism industry.
Keith Gilland, an assistant professor at UW-Stout, lives in Menomonie and says Lake Menomin could be an asset, but most of his neighbors go further north during the summer where the lakes aren’t teeming with blue-green algae. This kind of pollution is common in highly agricultural areas like the Red Cedar Watershed, which encompasses more than 3,000 farms. Agricultural water management is one of Wisconsin’s 10 Grand Water Challenges and a top priority for the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, which provided funding for the “Establishment and Support of the Red Cedar Basin Monitoring Group.”
“The Red Cedar Basin is a good representation of a lot of watersheds in the entire upper Midwest Great Lakes region,” he says. “Lake Menomin has problems, and fixing it would benefit the City of Menomonie, Dunn County, and the lake, and it could be a good representation and model for other understudied lake systems.”
Lake Menomin interests him as a citizen and an ecologist. He notes that the assumption is if farmers adopt certain land management practices, the lakes will fix themselves. Yet that might not be entirely true given the lakes’ history, changes in land use, and the changing climate which has impacted precipitation patterns and runoff events in the watershed.
“We know the lake is green, but I don’t know that we should assume we entirely know why,” he says. “A large part of the problem could indeed be the particle-bound phosphorus coming from farm fields, but it also could be far more complicated than that, and we really need to study the lake and the entire watershed to understand it and refine our solutions.”
Concerted pollution remediation strategies began in 2013 followed by establishment of a volunteer-led Red Cedar Basin Monitoring Group to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies. Unfortunately, the group languished after its leader retired in 2015, and valuable long-term data is missing.
“A lot of work has gone into fixing water-quality issues at the watershed scale, but there hasn’t been a concerted effort to monitor whether it’s been effective,” Gilland says.
That’s where he and a team of student researchers and faculty collaborators come in.
With support from the Freshwater Collaborative in 2022, Gilland established an ongoing monitoring program within UW-Stout — not only helping to fill the monitoring gap, but also preparing students for the workforce.
The project brings together UW-Stout faculty from biology and applied social science as well as external partners like the city of Menomonie, Dunn County Land and Water Conservation, and the Red Cedar River Watershed Division of UW-Extension.
Local high school and middle school students are involved in the sampling program. Last summer three undergraduates from UW-Stout collected and analyzed samples from surface waters of the Red Cedar Watershed. All three presented their findings at Research in the Rotunda in Madison and the 2023 National Conference on Undergraduate Research hosted by UW-Claire. This summer the monitoring group includes students from UW-Eau Claire, UW-River Falls and UW Oshkosh.
“My favorite part of this research has been traveling to different sites to collect data and working with my colleagues and professors. It was interesting to see firsthand how the algal blooms developed over the course of the summer,” says Dylan Kostuch, who graduated in May.
Having never worked on a research project, sophomore Kal Breeden was happy to get hands-on fieldwork experience early in his college career.
Hands-on experience helped Britney Serafina land a job as a land resource technician for Chippewa County.
“This experience has given me many valuable skills that will help me to reach my goals,” he says. “I feel very confident with the amount of work experience that I’ve gained through this project, particularly from conducting both fieldwork and lab work, and am excited to enter the workforce and continue working on meaningful research projects like this one.”
Britney Serafina graduated in May with a job lined up as a land resource technician for Chippewa County. Learning how to use tools and equipment and improving her GIS skills played a role.
“This experience has already helped me attain my career goals by giving me the confidence and experience for finding new job opportunities,” she says.
The hands-on training for students combined with the ability to provide consistent watershed monitoring is a win for Wisconsin — and could lead to more collaborations and training.
“Surface water monitoring within the Red Cedar Watershed is critical to the assessment of our water resources and in determining the locations of land management, conservation and restoration practices,” says Chase Cummings, a county conservationist with the Dunn County Land and Water Conservation Division. “Local municipal resources can be limited in areas of resource monitoring and the implementation of best management practices. We are committed to the role that we can play in advancing these efforts and look forward to our continued partnership with UW-Stout, as well as future partnerships, contributions and opportunities this program can provide.”
By Moira Harrington, UW-Madison/Wisconsin Sea Grant
When summer stretches before many college undergraduates, they make plans: Spend time outdoors. Connect with friends. Catch up on screen time.
For the 31 undergraduates participating in the 2023 Freshwater@UW Summer Research Scholars Program, those plans are the same, with slight alterations. The time outdoors is likely to be spent collecting field samples from a body of water. The friends are new ones—made from the pool of program participants who hail from California to Alabama from Virginia to Wisconsin, and points in between. The screen time isn’t about beating The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but instead entering findings into a larger dataset to further aquatic science projects.
“I looked at many summer REU (research experiences for undergraduates) opportunities,” Sofia Mota Chichy, chemistry major from the University of Michigan, said. “This one at Madison had the most in water chemistry and that’s what I am interested in. I’ve never worked in a chemistry lab before and it’s even better that it is an aquatic one.” Mota Chichy will be a part of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Christine Remucal’s lab studying magnesium oxide.
A second young woman also expressed her attraction to this opportunity because of its emphasis on water. Plus, said Jessica Alcorn a student at Northwest Missouri State, “I want to go to graduate school here in Madison.” She’ll work under UW-Madison’s Matt Ginder-Vogel, who does both surface and groundwater research.
These springboards from research to a new path in life were celebrated by an enthusiastic Marissa Jablonski at a recent orientation session for the students. “Life will form you without you trying. You’re on your way. You’ve shown up. You’re leaning in.”
Jablonski is the executive director of the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, one of the funding entities for the summer program, about which, Sea Grant Director Jim Hurley said, “It’s been really positive to be able to expand our program because of support from the Freshwater Collaborative. Last year, we were a fledgling program of nine students.” Hurley secured a nearly $358,300 grant from the collaborative, resulting in this year’s larger cohort.
No matter the size of the group, though, Hurley said the goal remains unchanged, “The overall goal is to provide immersive student research experiences to enhance workforce development skills and allow undergraduates to consider the option of graduate studies in Wisconsin. Research experience as an undergraduate is an important component of a successful application for graduate school. In the job market, it also sets apart recent undergraduates who have addressed the changing needs of water-related fields.”
Expanding the number of participating students is one thing, another is the broadened involvement from professors, graduate students and others at organizations that are acting as mentors for the students. There are 48 in all, including people on University of Wisconsin System campuses in Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee and Oshkosh. Also providing formative experiences will be mentors from the U.S. Geological Survey, the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve, Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Wisconsin Maritime Museum.
In application materials, students this summer expressed interest in pursuing research into topics such as pollution, climate change, molecular structures of water, public health and more. The projects will deliver on that skill-building, spawning a new generation of water leaders. While the students will disperse across the state for these labs and field sites, they have a standing invitation to gather each Thursday virtually—and in-person if they are in Madison—for weekly professional development sessions on topics like science communication, navigating graduate school and proposal writing.
They will add these skills to their already prodigious ones in other areas that demonstrate well-rounded natures. At the orientation session, Alison Mikulyuk, summer research opportunity program coordinator, called out fun facts when she said among the group there was a proficient loon caller, a mushroom finder, dancers, an aspiring author, someone who graduated from high school as a 14-year-old, a boxer, world-medalist baton twirler, two twins, competitive swimmers, a multi-instrumentalist, many who play instruments and several who speak more than one language.
Mikulyuk urged the undergraduates to enjoy those skills of others, and also capitalize on the people who possess them, “Learn from each other. Care for each other…Take advantage of personal and professional connections.” She continued, “I hope you will have a life-changing experience that propels you forward in your next decades.”
The program will run until Aug. 5, culminating in a poster session where students will present their summer’s worth of findings.
In addition to the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin and Sea Grant, the summer program has support from the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute, Water@UW Madison and the UW-Madison Graduate School.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville recently hosted students from across the state for the second Wisconsin Agriculture-Water Nexus Network field trip, funded by the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, where students explored critical issues related to the connections between agriculture and water management.
The three-day field trip course was developed last year by faculty from UW-Platteville, UW-Madison, UW-Green Bay and UW-Stevens Point. The host of the field trip rotates to leverage the regional geographic variations of each participating school.
“The main goal of the trip is to expose students to different regions of the state and how the farmers and researchers are addressing water quality issues there,” said Dr. Joseph Sanford, assistant professor in the School of Agriculture and organizer of the recent trip. “Southwest Wisconsin presents some pretty unique issues. The landscape of agriculture production is much different.”
Students learn about flumes and how to determine runoff flow rates and volume from the edge of field monitoring sites./UW-Platteville
Some of the challenges, unique to Southwest Wisconsin, Sanford explained include the topography of the Driftless region, which leads to more runoff in the fields. The soil in the region is siltier, making it more highly erodible than the sandy soil of Central Wisconsin. The popularity of trout fishing in the region poses additional challenges because of the close proximity of streams to agricultural land.
“The majority of the trip was spent talking about efforts that researchers and producers are putting into trying to reduce impact, mainly focused on surface water,” said Sanford. “The main goal was to get students in the field seeing these issues. As professors, we hear from people at the DNR, UW-Extension or NRCS, that water quality is a huge issue – related to agriculture – and when our students come out of programs focused on water quality or environmental science, they know the issues, but they don’t always know the production side. They have to be able to step on a farm and talk to the producer, and that’s a different game. So, we want to expose them to water quality issues but also expose them to different types of agriculture and different types of producers.”
The three-day field trip included visits to small and large farming operations, including the Cates Family Farm in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and the Wilson Organic Farm in Cuba City, Wisconsin, where they learned about their regenerative grazing practices and other ways they are committed to conservation on their land. Students learned about cover crops, tillage practices and other land-water management methods through meetings with the NRCS, the Lafayette Ag Stewardship Alliance and Yahara Pride Farms and visits to UW-Platteville’s Pioneer Farm, the Lancaster Agriculture Research Station and the USDA Dairy Forage Site, among others.
Students visit Wilson Organic Farm in Cuba City, Wisconsin. UW-Platteville
“Before this trip, I had no experience with agriculture production but a little experience with water quality issues,” said Emma Ball, a senior from Elburn, Illinois, majoring in environmental engineering. “I wanted to participate in this experience, because water quality problems in varying settings and land uses interested me. I wanted to see how serious water quality impacts were taken in the agriculture realm and in southwestern Wisconsin.”
Ball was one of 16 students who participated; six students from UW-Platteville were joined by students from UW-River Falls, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Green Bay. Students represented a range of programs, from soil and crop science, reclamation, environment and conservation, and environmental engineering.
Jeffrey Smolinski, a soil and crop science major, joined the trip in order to gain more context around concepts he learned in class.
“I worked with Dr. Sanford in an internship before and have had many classes based on water quality or agricultural production, so I have plenty of background information on those topics,” said Smolinski, a junior from New London, Wisconsin. “What made me desire going on the trip was to put that book knowledge into real-life observations of operations and do on-site tours. Revisiting what you know through various approaches significantly helps learning and recollection, and this trip did exactly that.”
Sanford said plans are underway to continue offering the field trip at least once a year, in different regions of the state, and the long-term goal is to encourage students to participate again and expand their knowledge beyond Southwest Wisconsin.
“Students in Platteville aren’t necessarily going to stay in Platteville, just like students in Green Bay aren’t necessarily going to stay there,” he said. “Being exposed to these different areas is really going to broaden students’ opinions, in the long-term, about how systems are managed. The overall goal of the group is to try to expose students to the different ways farmers manage their farms and the different ways that farmers – along with researchers, extension agents and whoever else is on the ground – are helping to address these water quality issues.”
It’s that coordination and collaboration among everyone working to solve these issues that Maggie Foster, a junior reclamation, environment and conservation major, said was her biggest takeaway from the trip.
“In the field, we see farmers working with agronomists, working with lab scientists, working with conservationists, etc.,” said Foster. “The list goes on. Soils and plants run on very complex systems, so it makes sense that there would be extensive systems in place to manage them, so that was very fun to witness firsthand.”
The Wisconsin Agriculture-Water Nexus Network – established with funding from the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin – is a network of water researchers from University of Wisconsin institutions across the state, tasked with developing educational courses on agriculture-water management. For more information about WAW2N, visit freshwater.wisconsin.edu/ag-water-network/.
Students from West De Pere High School measure water quality in Ashwaubenon Creek.
When Dana Lex, a science teacher at West De Pere High School, was approached by UW-Green Bay faculty in 2006 to participate in a new water-quality monitoring program, she jumped at the opportunity to create a course that would get students outdoors.
“I’ve built my environmental science class around this project, and I feel it helps students be better parents, citizens and voters and to know that their future is connected to the health of the environment because they actually have experienced it firsthand,” she says.
UW-Green Bay’s Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program has grown into a network of teachers and students from 11 area high schools and middle schools who monitor environmentally impaired streams in the Fox River watershed for water quality and ecological health.
Student teams collect data that help researchers assess long-term trends and evaluate restoration efforts throughout the watershed. It’s important work that helps measure runoff pollution flowing to the Fox River and Bay of Green Bay where it contributes to the much publicized “dead zone” in the bay.
“Being involved with the program connects students to their environment in ways you cannot replicate any other way. It’s as simple as that,” Lex says. “There are so many careers out there related to environmental health and sustainability is becoming more mainstream every year.”
Participating students present their research findings to students, teachers, UW-Green Bay faculty and staff, and community members at the Annual Watershed Symposium. The 16th annual event in spring 2023 was funded by a grant from the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin and involved about 10 teachers, 65 students and 15 college and community professionals.
Students create poster presentations and talk about their research during the Annual Watershed Symposium.
During the symposiums, participants exchange ideas; share research findings through panel discussions, posters and presentations; compare data from their streams; and interact with researchers in water-quality fields. This year they also heard form Anna Qualls, who will graduate from De Pere High School in May 2023. Qualls was the first high school intern to participate in UW-Green-Bay’s Freshwater Summer Scholars Internship Program, which is also supported by the Freshwater Collaborative. (Read about her experience).
“The symposium is a great place to share data and see how our watershed is connected. You get a sense that with enough data and enough voices, we can and will make a difference improving our water resources,” says Mark Valentine, a science teacher at Aldo Leopold Community School in Green Bay.
Valentine joined the program and UW-Green Bay’s Wild Rice in the Classroom program as a first-year teacher two years ago, and 2023 was the first time his eighth-grade students presented their findings from monitoring the Fox River.
“The program provides great hands-on learning opportunities for our students and helps them understand the impacts we have on the water quality here locally,” he says. “It is a wonderful opportunity to get out of the classroom and know that the data we are collecting can have a positive impact.”
With a grant from the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin, six undergraduates were selected for the “The Dam Analysis and Monitoring Crew,” a two-week field experience during which they were trained to provide monitoring for a dam removal project in River Falls. The DAM Crew is a cooperative effort involving UW-River Falls, the Kiap-TU-Wish Chapter of Trout Unlimited, the Kinni Corridor Collaborative and Inter-Fluve. Read more at Dam Removal Project Opens Flow of Community-based Training and Research.
Jordyn Curtis and Mckenna Kellogg, Conservation majors at UW-River Falls, have continued work on the project as interns. Here’s what they had to say about their experience.
Why did you participate in this field research?
Curtis: I was in a hydrology course last spring, and I loved the material we were learning. This was an opportunity to get hands-on experience. And I like fishing, and the Kinnickinnicis good for trout fishing!
Kellogg: I also wanted the hands-on experience. I wanted to see what I could do in a future career if I wanted to work with water.
What did you learn?
Curtis: I had only had one water course before the DAM Crew, so I learned a lot about why temperature changes are super important to the trout. I learned how to do geomorphic surveys and why they are important. We looked at the vegetation and what that tells you. As a group we drew out how we thought the stream would meander once the dams were taken out and looked at how that would affect our plans of putting in a trail that everyone could access.
Mckenna Kellogg was surprised by the build up of sediment near the dams. She was hired as an intern to continuing compiling monitoring research.
It also helped us work on our teamwork skills. You work on that a bit in school in group projects, but this is very different. It was unique working with a team of 10 to 12 people.
Kellogg: I enjoyed learning about how the geomorphology changed based on where we were located in the river. In the impoundment between the two dams, you have 8-foot-tall clay walls of sediment built up. Sean [Morrison with Inter-Fluve] had us design what we thought the area should look like after the dam is removed. He had so much information about why we couldn’t put certain things in a certain area because in a few years after they’ve done the work, it will change. For example, if we put a kayak launch over here, it will get washed away in two years.
What was the benefit to interacting with different faculty and working professionals?
Kellogg: I really had only experienced what I could through class or if somebody came to campus to talk. Professors have to be more objective and tell you the various ways you could do something, and you have to decide what’s best. Getting in the field, you get to see how people work hands-on in their careers every day. That was interesting and gives you a new perspective on what you want to do with your future.
Curtis: Seeing how the Wisconsin DNR and Trout Unlimited and the Kinni Land Trust all work together was eye opening for me. Kent [Johnson from Trout Unlimited] and Sean gave us a very different point of view than our professors. Sean showed us so many different projects that he’s he worked on, problems he’s had to deal with and what they did. You could see before and after. That was helpful.
You were both hired as interns to continue the project. What have you been doing?
Curtis: We just started, so we’ve been looking at archives of arial photos to see what Lake Louise looked like in 1958 and looking at plot maps to see how things have changed.
Kellogg: What we did during the summer was geomorphology surveys and vegetative cover. We’ll continue to gather more data. We also want to do soil core samples and sedimentation inventory. Jordyn is talking about doing a sedimentation study at the mouth of the river where it meets St. Croix. We kind of have free reign of what we want to research.
I’m very appreciative they gave us the opportunity to continue all the study from the summer. They trust us with this independent research and believe in us to be able to create a framework for future interns. Because we’re at the beginning of this project, we get to lay the groundwork for it to expand. Ten years down the road we’ll get to see what people have done with it.
Curtis: Exactly. We’re pioneers.
What are your career goals and how will this experience help you attain them?
Kellogg: What I love about a conservation degree is that it opens you up to work in pretty much any discipline. I really like what I do now [as a park ranger for the WDNR] and I would like to continue to work for the DNR. I think it could be fun to work in water — maybe aquatic surveying, which would be a fun mix between field studies and data analysis.
Curtis: The DAM Crew and this internship have taught me how to gather, consolidate and use data. Doing vegetation surveys for the DAM Crew this spring will make me better at plant ID, and doing more with the soil will give me more background information for forestry. I have a position with the Forestry Service as a forestry crew technician starting in May in Superior National Forest. That was the best result I could have hoped for.
No matter the size of the group, though, Hurley said the goal remains unchanged, “The overall goal is to provide immersive student research experiences to enhance workforce development skills and allow undergraduates to consider the option of graduate studies in Wisconsin. Research experience as an undergraduate is an important component of a successful application for graduate school. In the job market, it also sets apart recent undergraduates who have addressed the changing needs of water-related fields.”
