A stand of cattails
in the marsh along
University Bay during
a winter sunset.
Photo by Jeff Miller
All students in the Water Resources Management program must complete the 5-credit interdisciplinary Water Resources Management Summer Workshop. The workshop is a culminating experience near the end of a student's program where a student-faculty team work on a project focused on a contemporary problem in water resources. The workshop brings together students with diverse backgrounds and areas of specialization to work together as an interdisciplinary team which functions as an unbiased, diverse, and well-trained group of professionals that can make a contribution to water resources policy. The workshop provides an opportunity for students to work outside of the textbook environment and tackle a "real-world" problem.
Workshop participants should be prepared to devote most of their time to the full, eight week summer session. In addition, students must participate in the 2-credit planning seminar in the preceding spring semester (or an accepted substitute) and be enrolled the following fall semester. Some workshops involve projects in and around Madison; others entail extensive field work elsewhere in and around Wisconsin. The WRM program assists students with travel, food, and lodging arrangements when workshops focus on projects outside the Madison area. If you are interested in sponsoring a workshop or have an idea for a workshop, please contact WRM Chair Ken Potter.
The WRM Summer Workshop has been conducted, first as a seminar and later as a workshop, since the mid-1960's. The titles and accompanying descriptions demonstrate the wide variety of workshop topics and locales since 1970. Some of the WRM Workshops also have their own websites and are linked in the PDF below. Copies of workshop reports are available in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Student Commons (15 Science Hall, 550 N. Park Street, Madison WI 53706-1491).
In the last few years some of the workshops have produced websites. Below is a list of the workshops with a website and a link to their site.