World Water Day & NEW Watershed Champion 2024
March 18, 2024
The 2024 NEW Watershed Champion Award has been given to Lynn Terrien of the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay (UWGB) Lower Fox River Monitoring Program.
“The waters of Wisconsin are critical to public health, our economy, and our way of life. We commend and celebrate Lynn’s continued efforts to encourage area youth to protect our most valuable resource, water,” said Tom Sigmund, Executive Director of NEW Water, the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District.
Lynn’s dedicated career includes work as a science educator, and as one of the original teachers of the Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program, where she currently serves as Outreach and Education Coordinator.
The land-water nexus is one that Lynn’s work with the students in the watershed program helps to illustrate.
“What happens on the land – whether it’s urban streets, farm fields, or residential neighborhoods – directly impacts water quality,” said Jeff Smudde, Director of Environmental Programs. “Getting young people out in the field to understand this, first-hand, is incredibly impactful. Kudos to Lynn for leading these efforts.”
The Award was given to Lynn during the 2024 Annual Student Watershed Symposium at UWGB, in which students convene at to exchange ideas and share research findings with panel discussions, presentations, and posters.
Naming a NEW Watershed Champion comes as part of NEW Water’s commemoration of World Water Day, an event established by the United Nations in 1993 to bring awareness to global water issues.
Past Award recipients include the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for leading PCB remediation efforts of the Fox River, Brickstead Dairy for conservation efforts on their family farm, and Charlie Frisk, science educator and President of the Baird Creek Foundation. See the full list of recipients here >>
Lynn is the Outreach and Education Coordinator for the school-based Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program. This program is a collaborative watershed education and stream monitoring program focused on identifying non-point source pollution within the Fox River watershed. Lynn is a graduate from UW-Milwaukee where she earned her BS in Environmental Science. She earned her teaching certification at UW-Green Bay and her Masters in Environmental Education at UW-Stevens Point. Lynn taught at Green Bay Southwest High School for 26 years where she was one of the original teachers monitoring for the Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program. Lynn enjoyed the hands on field work that this project provided to her students and saw many students pursue science careers after their experience. She has now come full circle in retirement from teaching to continue in the role of coordinator for the program.
Awards and Recognitions: Lynn received the WSST Regional Award for Science Excellence in 1998, Golden Apple Award from the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce in 2001, and the Brown County Environmental Educator Award in 2012.
About NEW Water
NEW Water, the brand of the Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District, is a wholesale provider of wastewater treatment and conveyance services to 15 municipal customers, serving approximately 238,000 residents throughout a 285-square-mile area. NEW Water collects and treats an average of 41 million gallons a day from two facilities. NEW Water staff work around the clock so people can do laundry, flush the toilet, and run their businesses whenever they want.
Learn more at www.newwater.us.
Read the original article on NEW Water’s website here.
Image credit: Lynn Terrien, UWGB’s Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program
