Archives - April - 2026

Hayden Halstead, a first year University of Wisconsin-River Falls management major from New Richmond, had a great start on a college degree and a career before he even graduated from high school. Halstead already had work experience as a manager at McDonald’s, where he started working at age 14, and he started earning college credit as a junior by taking chemistry classes […]

When Jena Choi moved from Los Angeles to Whitefish Bay in middle school, she swapped ocean beaches for freshwater ecosystems. Lake Michigan and the area’s abundant rivers fostered a love of kayaking and deepened her appreciation for aquatic systems. But it wasn’t until she enrolled in UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences that Choi realized the possibilities of […]

Finding cost-effective ways to reduce agricultural runoff is critical to improving water quality in the Fox-River basin. To help, Brown and Outagamie Counties have begun installing agricultural runoff treatment systems (ARTS). ARTS were developed with a grant from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) in 2015. These pond-wetland systems are designed to work as natural phosphorus filters […]

On a frigid February day, Alumnus Ben Patschull steps across the frozen backwaters of the Mississippi River, his ice cleats scraping against a sheet of ice that forms a roof over a hidden world below.  Beneath the surface, more than 140 species of fish inhabit the Upper Mississippi River. For Patschull, the river isn’t just […]

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the Eau Claire City-County Health Department are currently collaborating on a research project aimed at increasing local identification of one of the biggest public health concerns in the nation — drinking water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. These human-made chemicals, upwards of 4,000 distinct […]