External Engagement News

The 9^th Annual Salt Lake County Watershed Symposium took place on November 18 - 19, in West Valley City, UT. This year’s conference included water quality experts, policy makers, environmental advocates, industry, academics, students, and the general public. Speakers and sessions covered a broad range of topics -- from general interest to technical -- with local, regional, and national relevance.

Besides having an informational table, iUTAH was well represented with collaborators from the University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College, and Utah State University all leading sessions.

Awards presented at the close of the conference, were based on voting by symposium attendees. Brian Greene and Maura Hahnenberger won the "Tony Award" for the most engaging presentation with their talk entitled "Don't Drink The Water? Testing Water Quality for Science and Outreach."

Other iUTAH winners included Gabe Bowen, Samantha Weintraub, and Yusef Jameel also won the “Sulu Award" for Best Science for their group presentation of "Water and Nutrients in The Urban Center and Surrounding Wildlands.”

This year's symposium had the largest attendance the event has seen to-date, with 35% of registrants being first-time attendees.

 Maura Hahnenberger and Brian Greene

One of iUTAH’s core missions is the education and diversification of the next generation of our state’s STEM workforce. To help us achieve this mission, iUTAH has supported the production of a new book on water by author/educator Nancy Bo Flood, who has published several books written from a Navajo perspective. “Water Runs Through This Book,” illustrated by Jan Sonnenmair’s photographs, weaves science and poetry together to stimulate awareness of and a conservation ethic toward water among readers of all ages. With the help of this book, raising awareness will be a focus of iUTAH education and outreach activities to diverse communities in the coming year.

iUTAH and USU’s ENVS 6410 Translational Ecology course are developing a web page that will help people find answers to the questions they have about water sustainability in Utah. At Science Unwrapped they asked people to take a survey that helped us learn which water-related questions are most important to Utah residents.

Michelle Baker, Jeff Horsburgh, Dan Bedford, Rita Teutonico and Stephanie Mitts participated in the NSF Incubating Transformations event on April 15, 2015. They presented on the importance of EPSCoR in transforming the research culture within the state of Utah.

March 14 marked the day of iUTAH’s spring Taking Learning Outdoors Workshop at the Ogden Nature Center.  Teachers investigated and measured water quality from various water bodies around the property, honed their bird watching skills, discovered the problems of invasive plant species, and even tried their hand at removing these plants. The Cache Valley teachers, who have been participating in outdoor field workshops and classroom visits with the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU) educators since September, had the opportunity to learn from iUTAH and Nature Center experts about ecological processes in northern Utah. They also learned how water impacts everything from biological diversity to bird migration.

The Spring T.L.O. Workshop is the last interaction teachers have with NHMU educators and iUTAH scientists before the final symposium May 21 at Utah State University.  At this symposium, teachers will share what they discovered throughout their yearlong program participation and highlight their experiences engaging their students in outdoor learning while using the natural world as a classroom.