Iowa Water Conference preview – Dec 3, 9-10:30

If you’re going to be in Ames the morning of Thursday, December 3, please stop by the 2nd floor of Agronomy Hall from 9-10:30 a.m. The Iowa Water Center will host a poster session featuring the Ames High School Bluestem Institute students and their Project Localize water quality posters (yes, the same ones that will be at our special event in March!).

Come for the coffee and donuts, stay for these incredible posters. Instructors Chad Zmolek, Mike Todd, and Joe Brekke are preparing their students for their presentation at the Iowa Water Conference in March, where the students will partake in a breakout session entitled “Water in Iowa: Voicing the Lexicon” followed by a break where they will exhibit their posters. (Not to mention the gallery session at CY Stephens the evening of March 23!)

If that’s not enough to entice you (as if coffee and donuts didn’t get you hooked in the first place), we will also hand out copies of the full 2016 Iowa Water Conference agendas. This is an exclusive sneak peek into the program for 2016 – the full agenda will be released on the Iowa Water Center website on Friday, December 4, and the Iowa Water Conference website will be updated soon thereafter.

This is an exciting time for water in Iowa – we hope you’ll join us!

Iowa Water Center seeks partners for community arts event

We’ve got something brewing over here at the Iowa Water Center, and we’re pretty excited about it.

This year is the tenth anniversary of the Iowa Water Conference (in its current form), so we thought we’d make it kind of special. The conference agenda (which will be released soon!) is particularly spectacular this year, but we can always do more.

The idea started off that we’d have Luther professors Jodi Enos-Berlage and Jane Hawley bring their Body of Water performance to Ames for conference goers to attend on the first night of the conference. This multimedia approach to water education seemed like a provocative addition to our two-day event, and we’ve had requests for several years to bring back an evening reception/activity for those attending from out of town. A lovely idea!

But then, we learned about a project that local Ames High School students are working on that also combines art and water education. The students within The Bluestem Institute at AHS are creating photo collages combined with text from interviews to define water quality terms from a technical, social and cultural perspective. They’ll be presenting during the Iowa Water Conference, but the work they’re doing is something to behold, so we didn’t want to limit it to conference attendees.

LIGHTBULB. Gallery session before the Body of Water performance. A community event, adjacent to the Iowa Water Conference, but not solely for paid attendees. Invite the community, far and wide.  These unique approaches to water outreach and education need to reach as many people as possible. Our state has some incredibly innovative environmental education efforts (Water Rocks!, anyone?), and it’s our job to display, disseminate, expose and otherwise facilitate learning. We at the Iowa Water Center are on a mission to better the state of water in the state of Iowa. Education and outreach are a big part of that.

But, we can’t do it alone. We want this evening event to be well-attended and free of charge to patrons. So we’re asking for partners – be it financial sponsors, connectors, marketers – whatever you can do to help make this happen, we want to talk to you. If you are interested in learning more or helping us brainstorm, contact us. We can’t wait to talk with you!

Long time, no see: Updates from IWC

When we started this blog, we promised a post at least every other week – what do you mean, April 30th was more than two weeks ago?

The summer is flying by at the Iowa Water Center, but our blog silence doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy (just the opposite, as you might imagine). Here are some things we’ve been working on:

  1. Iowa Water Conference 2016.  The dates have been set – March 23 and 24. Why the switch? For several years, we’ve received many comments on the difficulties of a Monday/Tuesday schedule, and many years we’ve run into the lion-like weather issues of early March. With that in mind, we’re giving the later dates a chance. There are some challenges to these dates as well (cutting it pretty close to field work), but we’re hoping everyone can make the trip in later March.We’re also accepting applications to speak at the Iowa Water Conference – please read the call for proposals on the IWC website and follow the link to the web form within the call to submit your presentation proposal.
  2. New graduate student grant competition. In addition to the 104(b) research seed grant competition, IWC will seek proposals this fall from graduate students looking to delve deeper into their currently funded projects. Up to $5,000 is available for supplemental funding to achieve additional research goals. Funds can be used for analytical costs, materials and supplies, domestic travel, and publication fees. In fact, publication fees must be included in the budget; a major objective of this program is to encourage students to seek publication of their work. More on this new program in a later post. The RFA will be available by the end of August with a due date in mid-November.
  3. Future state-wide water event. Now, we can’t say much on this one, but one of Iowa’s fantastic water organizations has a vision for a state-wide water event to complement the Iowa Water Conference to occur late next summer. The plans are just now beginning, but we can assure you that you won’t want to miss this event in 2016.

There’s a lot more than that going on in the world of Iowa water – what is your organization working on? Tell us so we can share far and wide!

ANNOUNCEMENT: Oklahoma State University Student Water Conference now accepting abstracts

On March 26-27, 2015, Oklahoma State University will host its Student Water Conference in Stillwater, OK, and they’re looking for students to submit their abstracts in water research.

From the website:

“About the Conference: The conference will consist entirely of student presentations to be judged by a panel of faculty members for providing constructive feedback to students in regard to their research presentation skills. Awards will be given for outstanding student presentations. Also, student activities will promote interaction among students of all disciplines.”

A note from Dr. Garey Fox, interim director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Center, mentions that there are travel assistantship funds up to $500 for participating students. They’re hoping to have students from all across the country.

This conference comes at a great time for students looking to present their research in a contest format – the Iowa Water Conference is just a few short weeks before and features a student poster contest as well as a non-judged format with 15-minute oral research presentations. The Iowa Water Conference would be a great warm up for those students looking to compete at the Oklahoma event!