Adirondack Watershed Institute

Our education team has been in Greenbelt, MD this past week at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to participate in the Earth to Sky Academy. Earth to Sky is a nationwide partnership, led by NASA, to improve climate and earth science communication. Lessons include hearing from NASA scientists, engineers, and communication specialists. Our team will bring these teachings back to the Adirondacks, to implement a similar course in the future. #science

Join Paul Smith’s College and partners at The Wild Center and Adirondack Research Consortium, for a climate listening session at the Whallonsburg Grange this Thursday, November 14th from 2:00-4:30PM. The listening session is designed to gather information about climate impacts in Lake Champlain communities. Participants will engage in a visioning session to identify solutions and shovel-ready projects with the goal of bringing federal, state, and private funding to the North Country. For information on this session, please visit: https://lnkd.in/d5UcxuUh. We hope to see you there!

Today is National STEM Day! At Paul Smith's College, we believe every day is an opportunity to celebrate and promote STEM learning. Today, however, we want to take a moment to highlight the initiatives AWI undertakes to build a scientifically literate community. Our team collaborates with high school teachers and students to provide hands-on learning experiences in water quality, invasive species, climate change, and other natural resource topics. We also support undergraduate and graduate research projects here at Paul Smith's College, fostering the next generation of scientific thinkers and problem-solvers. We work across disciplines, offering opportunities to integrate art into science learning through a collaborative data-arts project called Wool and Water. This initiative combines creativity with scientific exploration, allowing participants to engage with environmental data in unique and meaningful ways. If you are a formal or informal educator looking for ideas to implement in your programs, please reach out to our team. https://lnkd.in/eh2HamKp

For some, seeing snow on the ground stirs excitement for winter. For others, it’s a reminder of the long season ahead. For our team, it’s also a transitional time for Adirondack waters. As fall turns to winter, changes are present in our watersheds, but our data collection doesn’t stop. In this photo, our team is collecting data from a tributary. Monitoring multiple tributaries in the same watershed provides invaluable insights into the health of our lakes and ponds. For example, if one tributary shows elevated chloride or conductivity readings, it may point to higher road salt impact in that specific area. With this insight, it can help lead to more sound science and management decisions. This is just one of many water quality parameters we track to help tell the story of our watersheds.

What happens to fish in the winter? The short answer: they stay put! For the full story on how fish survive the cold months, check out our latest blog post: https://lnkd.in/exUsrbCQ

Happy Halloween! Each October, our office has a tradition of dressing up as Adirondack lakes for our team meeting. Can you guess which lakes we’re representing this year?

Thank you to those that joined the ACORN listening session today at the 2024 Fall Forestry Roundtable to discuss the climate impacts to forests, forest management, and the forest products industry. Today’s session was the beginning of a series of listening sessions held throughout the North Country. This Friday, November 1st, from 1:30-3:30, the Adirondack Climate Outreach and Resilience Network (ACORN) will lead a listening session at the Adirondack Ecological Center in Newcomb, NY. This session will gather information about climate impacts in Central Adirondack communities including Raquette Lake, Indian Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, Long Lake, Newcomb, and Minerva. Participants will engage in a visioning session to identify solutions and shovel-ready projects with the goal of bringing federal, state, and private funding to the North Country. For information on this session, please visit: https://lnkd.in/eGEEGTmf #ruralresilience #climate #science #adirondacks #community

Colder waters are here. With that, comes a unique natural phenomenon that is essential for lake health! Lake turnover is a natural process that occurs in many Adirondack lakes during the fall (and spring). This process is driven by changes in temperature and density of the water, leading to the mixing of the entire lake. As autumn arrives, the surface water (epilimnion) begins to cool due to lower air temperatures and reduced sunlight. Water is most dense at around 4°C (39°F). As the surface water cools and reaches this temperature, it becomes denser and starts to sink. The sinking of the denser surface water causes the water layers to mix. Wind and wave action can aid this process by promoting more uniform mixing throughout the lake. Eventually, the temperature and density of the water become relatively uniform from the surface to the bottom. This thorough mixing replenishes oxygen levels throughout the lake and redistributes nutrients. #science

Our team recently finished another season of collecting water samples for the Adirondack Long Term Monitoring program (ALTM). We traveled to the field sites using many favorite Adirondack modes of transportation — hiking, paddling, skiing, biking, skating, and snowmobiling. It made for some memorable journeys to gather important data! Many thanks to NYSERDA for funding this work. #adirondacks #paulsmithscollege

The Adirondack Climate Outreach & Resilience Network (ACORN) is a rural resilience network with partners from Paul Smith's College, the Adirondack Research Consortium, and The Wild Center. ACORN will be holding a series of listening sessions to gather insights about both the challenges and the existing strengths of our communities as we are faced with warmer, wetter, less predictable, and more severe weather that impacts our communities. The first listening session will be taking place during the 2024 Fall Forestry Roundtable on Wednesday, October 30th at the Northwest Bay Conference Center from 2:20-3:50PM. For information on this session, please visit: https://lnkd.in/dUfkuRAd. For more information about the full-day schedule of the Forestry Roundtable and to register for the entire day, please go to: https://lnkd.in/g4bzeJGc #ruralresilience