Networking Opportunities and Fun Events!
The Flow Project Debut Art Exhibit
Free and open to the public.
Wednesday, March 26*
Room: Expo 1
6:00-8:00 p.m.
You are invited to the 2025 Wisconsin Lakes and Rivers Convention Welcome Reception! Join us in a relaxed environment, grab a few tasty appetizers and a beverage from the cash bar.
Explore and celebrate water through art! The Flow Project paired undergraduate students from UW System campuses with water professionals across the state to create art inspired by water. Stop over anytime 6:00-8:00 p.m. to visit with some of the students who will be present to showcase their pieces.
*This exhibit will be on display for Convention attendees until 2:00 on Friday, March 28.
Free and open to the public.
Wednesday, March 26
Room: Expo 1
6:00-8:00 p.m.
You are invited to the 2025 Wisconsin Lakes and Rivers Convention Welcome Reception! Join us in a relaxed environment, grab a few tasty appetizers and a beverage from the cash bar.
Our “Power of Words” theme encouraged us to bring back the Author Meet & Greet! Have a conversation and maybe buy a book/CD and get it signed. Check out a variety of authors of all kinds at tables throughout Expo 1.
Here’s a line-up of authors already confirmed:
- Wisconsin’s Wild Lakes
- Our Living Ancestors
- Graced by the Seasons
- and other titles
https://www.facebook.com/kenmblomberg/
- Up the Creek
- Letters from Art
- Country Journal
- Dancing with the Devil
- Backyard Wonders
- Following Old Trails
- One Family’s Forest
- Jewels of Nature
- More Jewels of Nature
- Pulse: A Farmer’s Take on the Universe
- Walking on Water II
- Music with a Message
https://cnroutreached.asapconnected.com/#ProductCategory=LAKE
- The Magic Goggles
- Fish Hotel
- Freshwater Fish Series (Bluegills, Iowa Darter)
- Figure Eight
- Spider Lake
- Bough Cutter
- Musky Run
- (and with any luck, book 5!)
- You Shoulda Been Here Last Week: Stories from an Angling Life
- Ripple Effects: How we’re loving our lakes to death
- A Lakeside Companion
- On the Pond: Lake Michigan Reflections
https://www.georutherford.com/
- Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet
https://feetwetwriting.com/pages/victoria-rydberg-nania
- Hands On, Feet Wet: The Story of River Crossing Environmental Charter School
https://www.jillsissonquinn.com/
- Sign Here if You Exist and Other Essays
- Deranged: Finding a Sense of Place in the Landscape and In the Lifespan)
https://cnroutreached.asapconnected.com/#ProductDetail=12743
- Aquatic Plants of the Upper Midwest: A photographic field guide to our underwater forests
- News of the Air
https://www.sonjatromeayrs.com/
- Dodge County, Incorporated: Big Ag and the Undoing of Rural America
https://littlecreekpress.com/authors/marcy-west/
- Protecting Paradise in the Driftless: How the Kickapoo Valley Reserve Came to Be
https://www.wrongtreebook.com/
- Wrong Tree Adventures in Wildlife
Join the fun! Go on a GooseChase!
GooseChase is an online platform that provides a real-world scavenger hunt to help people connect and have fun while learning.
- Get to know other Convention attendees.
- Complete challenges and win great prizes.
- Build partnerships, celebrate successes, share knowledge.
- Be creative, learn something new, have fun!
Get the app:
Download the GooseChase app- Open the app – do not click on “Continue as a Guest” – Please create a free account so that we know who is playing and you can win a prize.
- Once you’re logged into the app, click the magnifying glass and under “Join Code”, enter 33S9CE. The “2025 Wisconsin Lakes and Rivers Convention” experience will come up; click/press the “Let’s go!”
- Create a Team – You can either create a team of one or you can create a team that others can join (limit of 5 players to be eligible for prizes). If you want to play solo, you will automatically have a passcode assigned to your team so nobody else can join it. If you want your team to be open for others to join, you can remove the passcode or you can share the passcode with 4 more players.
- Choose “show notifications” to get notified when new missions are released!
The game will end at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, March 28, 2025 – winner(s) will be announced at lunch that day.
First-time Attending?
We would love to meet you at the Wednesday Evening Welcome Reception. Look for the “First-time Attendees” table and meet mentors who can answer questions and help you make the most of the Convention.
Not attending the welcome reception? Look for individuals wearing “Mentor” or “Staff” ribbons on their name badges. We are eager to help!
Mentors
If you’re a seasoned Convention attendee and willing to help first-time attendees with questions, please be sure you pick up a “Mentor” ribbon at the check-in table and affix it to your name badge. We also hope you can join us at the Wednesday Evening Welcome Reception and join first-time attendees at the table labeled “First-time Attendees”.
Volunteering as a citizen scientist is a big deal! Recording data on water quality and native plant communities, completing watercraft inspections, and looking for invasive species are some of the ways citizens help protect and preserve our water resources. In many cases, volunteer data are the only data that exist for a specific waterbody. These baseline data are extremely important in helping natural resource specialists manage our public waters. So, to each volunteer, from all of us, we would like to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU! Check out the lake and river monitoring milestones display in the Northwoods Expo.
Stewardship Award Ceremony and Banquet
Please join us in celebrating the 2025 Wisconsin Lake Stewardship and Volunteer Stream Monitoring Award winners at our dinner and awards ceremony on Thursday evening. The Wisconsin Citizen Lake Monitoring Network will also congratulate several long-term volunteers. If you pre-registered for the banquet and awards ceremony, you will have a blue ticket with your name badge. If you haven’t registered, but would like to attend, it’s not too late to join us, just sign up at registration before 2:00 PM, Thursday, March 27.
Also, look for the posters of the past Wisconsin Lake Stewardship Award winners and Stream Monitoring Volunteer Award winners.
Remembering our water achievements and the people who made them possible
Words have a unique power to preserve the memory of someone long after they have moved on from a career or this earth, allowing their essence to live on in our hearts. Through stories, letters, or simply spoken reminiscences, we keep their voices alive in our minds, offering comfort and connection. Every word shared about them carries a piece of who they were—whether it’s their laughter, wisdom, or kindness—and ensures their presence continues to resonate with us. The words we speak about them create a lasting imprint, allowing us to honor their legacy and keep their spirit close, no matter the distance in time. Enjoy the remembrances here and if you feel compelled, add your own.
Lake Tides Turns 50 this Year!
This year marks a monumental milestone for the Lake Tides newsletter as it celebrates turning 50. For half a century, Lake Tides has been the go-to source for anyone passionate about Wisconsin’s beautiful lakes, providing invaluable information, updates, and stories that connect and inspire us.
As we celebrate this golden anniversary, we look forward to many more years of Lake Tides continuing to educate, engage, and unite those who cherish Wisconsin’s lakes. Here’s to 50 years of making waves and to the countless more to come! If you are not currently on the Lake Tides mailing list and want to be, please sign up here.
Stop by the wall display in the large Northwoods Expo to view the Lake Tides display.
As a fun way to play with words, we have a few photos of AI-generated species that need to be named. Check out this collaborative piece during the convention and either come up with your own name following the guidelines, or mark your favorite.
How do species get their names? And what real-life consequences can these names bring? Find out by listening to the Names that Rock episode of Introduced, UW-Sea Grant’s award-winning podcast. https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/audio/introduced/
Well, you can’t have a convention themed “Power of Words” without some sort of word puzzle, can you? Of course not!
You’ll notice several words and definitions on the walls throughout the common spaces in the Convention Center. These are some of the answers to the crossword puzzle you will find inside your agenda.
Complete the puzzle and bring it to where you picked up your nametag to get entered into a drawing for some amazing prizes!
23rd Annual Lakes and Rivers Photo Contest
We’ve all heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Since we are focusing on the “Power of Words: Working for Our Waters” this year, the almost 70 photos in the 2025 photo contest show that folks have a lot to say about our cherished waters and our emotional connection to them.
Convention-goers will have an opportunity to vote for their favorite photo during the event and we will announce the winner during Friday’s lunch. Monetary winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place), along with honorable mentions were chosen by a panel of 3 professional photographers and will also be announced at this time.
We here at the Wisconsin Lakes and Rivers Partnership have always known that blending art and science is a good idea. It helps scientists (and the public) see their work in a new way and it can help make that science more accessible to everyone.
If you would like to learn more about the annual photo contest or see photos from past years, navigate to the Photo Contest area of the Wisconsin Water Week website.