The Water Summit!

The Summit kicked off on the morning of August 2^nd, 2017 with participants arriving both via group bus and individual vehicles. Participants came from Escuela Verde and Urban Ecology Center – Menominee Valley Branch, both located in Milwaukee; La Crosse Schools; Bayfield and Washburn Counties; and Northland College located in Ashland. Students rotated with their groups through sessions that included collecting data on transects of the Wisconsin River by canoe, exploring a riparian ecosystem through observation and data collection on Black Hawk Island, and a team building low ropes course with development of questions regarding symposium presentations. Additionally, participants rotated through sessions in measuring water quality of the Wisconsin River Watershed with a Northland College undergraduate student, recreation time, and swimming.

On Thursday, August 3^rd, an all Summit Data Blitz was held with participants gathering data at 8 different locations synchronized times twice in the afternoon. All data collected from this and other collection points was uploaded by participants after the Blitz. Each day, students were given time to put together their presentations for the symposium. They had access to laptops and iPads to create PowerPoints and use the data they collected and uploaded to support their thoughts and inquiries. A group of 10 students from Bayfield and Washburn, Wisconsin canoed the Lemonweir and Wisconsin rivers, collecting data transects on their paddle to compare to the larger Summit group.

On Friday, August 4^th, a symposium was held with a total of 7 presentations with all students given time to speak in front of the group. The data everyone collected was revealed and explored. Students and adults asked questions after each presentation to further extrapolate ideas and hypotheses. Pre- and Post- surveys of all participants were administer and collected in hopes to establish statistically significant connections from the time collecting data and interacting with others at the Summit.

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