Building partnership and stewardship with the Genesee RiverWatch Aquatic Education Network

Session: Education, Outreach, and Citizen Science in Our Great Lakes: Engaging the Community (1)

Michael Boller, St John Fisher College, mboller@sjfc.edu
Christopher Widmaier, Genesee River Watch , cjwidmaier@gmail.com
Christy Tyler, Rochester Institute of Technology, actsbi@rit.edu
George Thomas, Genesee RiverWatch, gthomas@ceinfo.org
William Hallahan, Nazareth College, whallah3@naz.edu
Kristin Traywick, Genesee RiverWatch, kktraywick@gmail.com

Abstract

The Genesee RiverWatch Aquatic Education Network has built a community of collaborative partners dedicated to watershed stewardship. A variety of structures that include meetings for aquatic educators, teacher professional development, and water quality activities for students have built bridges that increase opportunities for accomplishing stewardship objectives. This initiative grew out of a recognition that diverse stakeholders share youth education and stewardship priorities but are unconnected. By connecting aquatic educators and network partners we believe that we can spark a collective impact, marshal resources, and build opportunities for our community. Our session will be a presentation of the systems and structures we developed to build our network, our vision for change and opportunities for engagement with the Genesee River Aquatic Network. We hope to offer participants an understanding possible benefits for their work, a path to participation in our network and strategies that can be used to build educational communities in their watershed.