Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Cracket Sceptic
for this Thursday, October 9th, 2025, have your host James here, joined right now by our
great friends from UW-Madison Extension Wood County.
We've got Anna Mitchell with us, Regional Natural Resource Educator, and a good to
have you with us.
Good to be here James.
You know I love talking to you, I love learning, I love our conversations, and especially
when we get to talk about really interesting, fun things that you guys are doing at Extension
or a combination of others with Extension, and we're going to talk about the value of
community science in science by the river.
Yes, we are, yeah, so community science is a form of research that provides everyone
regardless of your background, an opportunity to contribute to meaningful data collection,
to further scientific understanding and key issues.
So community science opportunities are so abundant in our world, but a lot of the times
they go super unnoticed and unmentioned, which is kind of a shame, because community science
efforts have advanced and informed a lot of different fields and projects.
You know Anna, I agree with everything you said there, just kind of looking at this from
the outside.
Why do researchers and those in the industry promote and rely on community science?
Yeah, so there's a couple of different reasons.
So researchers and those within like the research community really rely on community science
because it engages community members and researchers by themselves can only collect so much data,
right?
So you can get people on board and passionate about a subject to help collect different data
and just get really engaged and passionate about whatever field that they're in that's
always a benefit, not just to researchers but also to the community members.
One of the things that I've just really, really enjoyed about doing this job and sitting
in this chair is I love talking to people that are passionate about something.
I don't care what the topic is, they're passionate about it, they can get me engaged in it,
and everybody we have joined us is that type of person, including yourself and everything.
Now that said, community science isn't something new, this is something that's been around.
Yeah, community science has been around for quite a while, in fact it's been around since
the 1800s when Alexander von Humboldt, which was a notch, he was a naturalist and explorer,
traveled to South America in the early 1800s and he was one of the very first people
to describe humans' roles in climate change.
So he had this dream of uniting communities through scientific observations.
So what he did was establish a series of observing stations throughout the world.
And the goal was that he could coordinate a global study of the Earth's magnetism.
So if you could think about this people, like an effort in the 1800s to connect people
from around the world to study Earth's magnetism.
Early day messenger.
Yeah, right.
Did they send a passenger?
Yeah.
I mean, got a wonder.
The whole different meaning, the tweeting.
Yeah, right.
That's so darn cool.
It is.
Before these notes, I had not read about this and I put a side, the rabbit hole, I'm going
to go down with this one.
I'm so excited to read more about that.
What an interesting moment.
What an amazing human being to think about that and then to pull it off, really, because
they were able to kind of pull this off and have these stations around the world.
Yeah.
So really cool.
When it comes to the challenges regarding related to natural resources, that's something
else though.
Yeah.
I mean, we hear a lot about challenges and natural resources today.
I mean, there's so many out there, it can feel so daunting.
Like even as somebody who works in natural resources, it can feel overwhelming, right?
But there's so many people that are working on these issues, not just professional scientists
that are looking for solutions.
There's also politicians who are advocating for possible solutions or taking a stance
on these different issues, right?
And then there's the individual who's just trying to do their part, trying to educate
themselves, trying to help with whatever issue, you know?
And sometimes like we get siloed into our own individual roles and that can feel really
overwhelming.
So today more than ever, we really need to lean heavily into our community science approach.
Just to help not only us, but our communities learn about these different, I will say challenges
are not issues or challenges, right?
If we as a community can educate ourselves or even as an individual, you know, then we
can talk to our neighbor or, you know, talk to our family about these issues.
If you're passionate about it and want to learn more about a specific natural resources
challenge, I really encourage you to get involved in some kind of community science program
that's related to that topic, then share, right?
It's, you know, for one, I think it's really unique and quite cool when we look at society,
human beings and what we've accomplished and what we can accomplish when we work together.
The previous story notes that very well, even in the 1800s, what we were able to accomplish
little on nowadays with technology and that we are connected as much as we are and everything.
And every bit of data is important on this one and everybody working together is important
on this one.
I, when I, when we talk about the planet, when we talk about these kind of issues, to me,
I don't, I don't know that this is a divisive topic.
I mean, no, not at all.
We all got to live here.
We're all on this planet.
It feels like we should probably keep this thing around.
It seems pretty self-explanatory to me and regarding that, I think that once you get people
to that mindset, you get a lot more of that data, a lot more people wanted to be a part
of these things.
And while this is a big issue, whatever we're talking about, any level of these things
in natural resources and the importance of them from people's, people's to any other
topic, they affect us all and all of us can do some good on this one.
They're not as, they're not as bright, they're not as big as us.
There's more of us than the problem.
And if we work together, we can face this together and it's a lot, a lot easier.
I know I, like a lot of kids out there would look at a messy room as a teenager and like,
that's wait, how am I ever going to clean all this?
But if you start in one corner and work your way around, eventually, you get all right.
If you attack these things, if you approach them, and I'm going to focus on this, and this
person's focused on this, little by little, this all adds up.
And in here in Wisconsin, we've got quite a few opportunities for this.
Oh, yeah.
We have an abundant amount of community science opportunities here in Wisconsin.
I was doing a little bit of research and we actually have 34 different community science
programs.
That's 34.
That's impressive.
That's impressive.
It is, right?
So these, these programs cover a huge variety of topic areas, including wildlife, invasive
species, insects, water quality, birds, climate, plants, and even space.
Like if there's a topic you're interested in, odds are in Wisconsin, we have a community
science program for you to get involved in.
Yeah, it's something to look into and regarding that, it can be a bit of a broad topic.
There are, you know, different layers to that that might interest you a little bit more
and get you more and more interested in.
Yeah.
And in fact, UW-Madison has a wonderful guide to kind of help you learn more about these
opportunities.
So if you're interested in some of these community science opportunities, you can visit the UW-Madison
Library's Research Guides and search community science opportunities and people and projects.
And there is like loads of different resources for you to learn more about these.
There's another great opportunity for people to be able to learn more and find out more.
But it's kind of interesting to me that you brought up Mr. Van Humboldt earlier and his
stations around the world.
And here locally we have something a little similar to that.
We do, yeah, on a much smaller scale.
But actually here in UW Extension in our Wood County office, myself and my colleague,
Jen McNally, have planned and will be hosting a community science event called Science
by the River.
Science by the River will be hosted in Wisconsin Rapids on October 18th.
And this event is a celebration of all things science and outdoors.
It's a free community event and it will be hosted along the Riverfront Trail from Hansen
Park to Lion Park on October 18th from 10am to 1pm.
Family-friendly event.
There's lots of hands-on activities.
In fact, along that Riverfront path, we'll have 14 different discovery stations and
at those discovery stations, there's so many different hands-on activities that are
hosted by local organizations, citizen groups, departments, colleges and more.
And they each showcase a different aspect of science and ways to get involved in science
and to learn about fields and science.
Yeah, to that what we were talking about before about the many layers to this, the 14 different
stations really do focus on these certain particular things.
And do you want to say as well, they're all run by somebody, appreciate the people that
are taking time out of their data, run these stations and everything.
We could not do it without them.
It's really cool.
You could start walking along the bike path or either Benz Hansen Park or Lion Park and
somewhere in the middle if you'd like, you don't have to follow a certain path, do this
as you like.
Yep, come and go as you please, there's, like I said, it's free, it's family-friendly,
I mean, there's activities for all ages and it's such a broad range of topics.
Like we cover earth science and we cover technology and just all different areas and STEM.
It's going to be so much fun.
There's the Wood County Citizens Water Group will be hosting something there.
Yeah, so Wood County Citizens Water Group will be hosting a discovery station where they
will offer a free nitrate screening to anyone who brings a sample from their private well.
And I'll repeat, that's from a private well.
So if you live in town, you won't need to bring your water in.
But if you have a private well, what you can do is you can take a sample of your water
before it gets to any treatment system, right?
And then put it in a clean cup or container and bring it in.
Look for the Wood County Citizens Water Group, they'll screen it for nitrate and then provide
you with some really good resources on what those results mean for you.
They'll also have the Einstein project down there.
That's cool.
Yeah, this is the first year that the Einstein project is joining us and we are
so excited.
So they have a really large mobile design lab that they are going to be bringing.
And they will be doing a really hands-on project in their mobile design.
I think they have some 3D printers that people can play around with and it's going to be
a Halloween themed project.
Oh, awesome.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That was already interested.
Now they really brought it home.
Yeah, that's awesome.
That is going to be pretty cool.
And the Heart of Wisconsin amateur radio group is going to be down there.
Cool.
Another second year coming and we are so excited to have the Heart of Wisconsin amateur
radio group back.
They will be teaching people how to send worse code.
They're going to explore radio waves and maybe even some folks might be able to reach
the International Space Station.
They were able to do that last year and it was like a highlight of last year's event.
It was super cool.
It's clearly a little biased doing the job.
I'm literally doing right now and everything but not only is radio fascinating and interesting
to me, but just learning about radio waves in general and how this whole thing works.
If you came into this world and you had never heard about magic, you would think it was
magic.
You would think, well, that's magic.
How does that work otherwise?
Somebody cast a spell and made this all worse.
It would make more sense than trying to explain radio waves sometimes to people.
It's fascinating and really interesting and they do a really cool job of being able
to really break this down and I have to say this actually about all of these stations.
One of the things I love about this event so much is the individuals running these stations
are all Bill Nies.
They're all very good at explaining this stuff.
For people like me that love science but I can't always comprehend some of these bigger
words and some of this stuff or how this connects to this, the people that can explain
this stuff to even somebody like me are so valuable.
And all of the layers of this and there's a lot of great individuals running these stations
that are very good at explaining these kind of things much better than I am.
Yeah.
Well, and it's cool because I know a lot about the topics that will be there.
I learn something new every year and like I see kids out there learning something new
every year and then their parents getting involved and just people who don't know science
by the river is happening but take a walk on the river from path and they're getting
engaged.
It is such a fun opportunity for our community to come together and just learn about
science and learn about ways to get involved and opportunities for improving our natural
resources or just getting involved in a science field.
We have plenty of community groups who are going to be there and are so passionate about
whatever topic that they're focusing on and they just have a really great way of engaging
people and getting people involved.
And if people want to see maybe a map or lay out of this or learn more about it, is there
a place we can direct them?
Yeah.
So there's two places.
I'll direct you the first being the Science by the River Facebook page.
So if you go on Facebook and you search Science by the River, you can see a map on there.
I don't have that uploaded yet, but I will.
But there are event details on there.
And then you can also reach out to me at the UW Extension office here in Wood County
or you can email anna.m.james at whisk.edu.
I will mention that Science by the River this year has partnered with the Wisconsin Science
Festival.
So it is a Wisconsin Science Festival and you can also learn more about our event by visiting
the Wisconsin Science Festival website.
Science by the River is hosted as Anna mentioned by UW Extension, but also want to say a big
shout out to in the encourage community foundation help and make this happen.
Encourage joins us all the time over the years.
We love the team over there and all the work that they put in this community.
Really appreciate it.
And then again, to all the volunteers, everybody being a part of this event, I don't know how
many years has been going on.
It's got to be three or four at least.
I think this is its official fourth year we had to cancel one year to celebrate.
That's one thing I will mention.
It is an outdoor event, so come dressed for the weather.
It does look like it's going to be nice out this Saturday, not can I wood and all that
because it's really deserved it.
And I don't think I'm only saying this because I hear so much from the community about
this event.
Another after the event like the come Monday and everything.
It's becoming more and more popular and more and more something that people look forward
to.
I think it was one year where it was a different date maybe or something.
And I remember here having a couple guests come in and ask me if I had heard when it was
going to be going on.
It's becoming more and more popular because people love science and love learning.
It's a fun event.
Be a part of it everybody.
Make plans to take a nice walk along the river here on October 18th from 10 to 1 for
science by the river and I gave you her contact information before.
Encourage you to reach out to her if need be otherwise extension dot whisker dot edu is
the website for you w if you want to get over there for that too.
It's another way to contact the team over there.
And thank you so much for the time.
We appreciate you.
Yeah, thanks James.
You have a good day.
You too.
And we appreciate you joining us for another edition of WFHR's Rapids Report.
