Citizen Lake Monitoring for the DNR

MG21 students have been Citizen lake Monitors for the past 4 years monitoring the water quality in the Lake Monona bay off Frost Woods Beach. Students learn basic water sampling techniques and head out 1x per week to conduct water sampling on Lake Monona in the MG21 canoe. The Citizen Lake Monitoring Network, the core of the Wisconsin Lakes Partnership, creates a bond between over 1000 citizen volunteers statewide and the Wisconsin DNR. Its goals are to collect high quality data, to educate and empower volunteers, and to share this data and knowledge. Volunteers measure water clarity, using the Secchi Disk method, as an indicator of water quality. Volunteers may also collect chemistry, temperature, and dissolved oxygen data, as well as identify and map plants or watch for the first appearance of Eurasian Water Milfoil near boat landings.