Last week was the first time in a while that hunkering down at home for days on end was a response to weather and not a decision driven by spiking COVID numbers. Here in south/central …
Lake Mendota
Guest Post: An Invasive Species and An Education on An Ever-Changing Lake
by Julia Buskirk – In 2015, Petra Wakker began her college experience alongside Lake Mendota. She was no stranger to this waterway—before walking alongside the lake on her way to classes at UW-Madison, Wakker had …
Socially Distanced Science: Head-Hunting at Home!
Back in March of this year, just as it was becoming clear that “business as usual” was about to be a thing of the past, Petra Wakker walked into Room 101 of Hasler Lab and …
Guest Post: Why Lake Mendota is Both First (and Fourth) in the Yahara Chain of Lakes
Holding History, a UW-Madison-based project, helps students explore how cultural knowledge is made and preserved and share what they learn with broader audiences. Their series, Water Lines, is produced by 2019 Trout Lake Station summer …
Cool Weather Means Clear Waters for Wisconsin Lakes
Most people think of green, algae-filled waters when talking about southern Wisconsin lakes. And, sure, these highly productive bodies are full of nutrients that run off from the landscape and feed huge algae blooms every …
Water We Talking About? The Wind and the Waves
Remember when songs like this used to mean something? Well, it’s Friday again and, if that doesn’t exactly mark the end of the work week the way it once used to, it does at least …
Madison Lakes Now Ice-Free, Open for Spring
Another year, another ice-off for Madison’s lakes. Yesterday, the Wisconsin State Climatology office – specifically Ed Hopkins (you should read this great write-up in the Wisconsin State Journal) – officially declared the surface of Lake …
Blog Redux: Our Weekend as a Walleye Nursery: Video and Pics
After a week of our walleye research in the news, it made us think back on past posts. Then we stumbled upon this one from 2013 when, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist, Kurt …
this is not the “new normal” of climate change, it’s a stop on the way to somewhere else
This summer, I led a workshop for journalists (my other gig is with the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources) on the legacy of the Clean Water Act. We were in Cleveland, Ohio and Kyle …
Can Water Look Cold?
Right now, Lake Mendota is mostly frozen over – its only open water way out in the middle of the lake where winds are keeping the surface too riled up to freeze. But, yesterday morning …