Interactive digital maps link the public to the places they live and visit in interesting and important ways. They also happen to be the thing that links the two University of Wisconsin-Madison freshmen who have been working with Wisconsin Sea Grant this year as part of the UW’s Undergraduate Research Scholars (URS) program.
Halle Lambeau and Stephanie Schmidt are the latest in a line of students to work with David Hart, Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Assistant Director for Extension, through URS, a program that pairs promising new students with established on-campus researchers in a field of study that interests them. Hart’s research centers on geographic information systems, as applied to urban planning and coastal management.
“The URS program is a great way for students new to the university to get some actual hands-on experience in an area of research that might someday inform their careers,” said Hart. “From our perspective, we often end up with some pretty interesting and valuable outreach tools.”
For instance, one of last year’s URS students helped to create an interactive story map centered on the events and individuals documented in the book The People of the Sturgeon. Another created a map highlighting the locations of Wisconsin Sea Grant’s various research, outreach and education efforts.
Both Lambeau and Schmidt will be working with an online tool called Siftr, an app that collects photos into an interactive map, encouraging the public to add to the mix with their own images and commentary. Lambeau’s using the app to create a tourism-focused map centered on Lake Superior. Schmidt will use it to chronicle efforts to clean up decades of PCB pollution in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley.
“I’m focusing on ways people can become more informed about their environment and get involved to improve it, “ explained Lambeau. “That could mean learning how to avoid spreading invasive species or ways to reduce litter.”
Schmidt, meanwhile, used the UW‘s recent spring break to travel with her father, a land surveyor, to the Fox River area, including cities such as De Pere and Kaukauna, to collect their own set of photos. She’s hoping to pair current images with photographs and maps from the 1930s, when the pollution of the area first began.
“I’ve always been interested in water quality,” said Schmidt, who’s pursuing a joint degree in zoology and environmental studies in the hopes of pursuing a career as a veterinarian. She said the URS program was actually one of the reasons she chose to come to UW-Madison.
Lambeau, who hails from Wauwatosa, was always environmentally inclined, but crystallized her interest in conservation after a stint as a YMCA assistant camp counselor. She hopes to eventually work as a biologist in a National Park, perhaps on the California coast, or perhaps abroad in Spain or Latin America.
“I really like the idea of place-based learning and actionable science,” she said. “This project is a great way to combine both.”
