Lower Fox Monitoring Program gets $20,000 grant to expand H.S. involvement

Thanks to a $20,000 grant from the Wisconsin Coastal Management Program and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), high school students from Oneida Nation High School and Pulaski High School will be able to participate in UW-Green Bay’s Lower Fox River Watershed Monitoring Program.

Annette Pelegrin, a staff specialist with the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity, tells us the grant funds expansion of the existing and successful monitoring program that began nearly a decade ago with major funding from Arjo Wiggins Appleton Ltd. The partnership with the Oneida and Pulaski schools provides support for watershed monitoring work on two locations on Trout Creek near Green Bay. This project will engage teachers and students in providing quality data to the LFRWMP database to help university and agency researchers better understand the environmental health of the watershed and evaluate changes in non-point source pollution over time.  It is hoped the grant will also bring public awareness to water quality issues through demonstrations of monitoring techniques and through an educational display that will be shown at various venues, starting at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary on Oct. 6.