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May 22, 2020 / Volume 8, Issue 20
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WRRC Office Update
Although the WRRC building will be closed to the public until further notice, our staff continue to work and engage as much as possible. You can reach us via email as listed on our
Directory. We wish you all the best - Stay safe and healthy!
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A New Conference Experience |
Join us for the first-ever virtual WRRC annual conference on June 18 and 19, 2020. With over 30 speakers and panelists, you will hear perspectives from people at the forefront of water management across Arizona and beyond. The virtual setting brings the presentations right into your living room for an up-close and personal experience. Are you missing professional interaction these days? Thursday afternoon's concurrent virtual happy hours, hosted by our sponsors, offer venues for that much-needed conversation. We even have options for sidebar conversations through personalized breakout rooms. Three of the happy hours will follow on conference topics, one will offer mentoring for entry into the water management field, and one will be a meet and greet ⏤ think of it like wandering around the conference lobby to see who you bump into. Combined with audience polling and on-line Q&A, we hope to spark ideas and give you a voice! All participants will get an electronic conference packet, but if you register before Friday, May 29, we can also send you a packet in the mail, complete with this year's water ruler and other giveaways. Hope to "see" you at the conference!
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Photo: medium.com |
Lessons Learned: Making the Transition to Online Teaching
By WRRC Research Scientist Jean McLain
In mid-March, University of Arizona faculty were informed that all teaching would be transitioned to online and that no face-to-face classroom teaching would be done for the rest of the spring semester. I am fairly new to classroom teaching, having taught Scientific Writing to UArizona undergraduate and graduate students each semester only since Fall 2017. The thought of quickly adapting my 3-hour Friday lecture to an online format was terrifying.
Now that my final grades have been posted, I am looking back at "lessons learned" - what did this experience teach me, and how will these lessons improve my future teaching, both online and in the classroom?
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UCOWR to Honor WRRC Director Megdal
Social distancing precautions due to COVID-19 have caused the cancellation of many major water resources conferences, including the 2020 UCOWR/NIWR Annual Water Resources Conference, originally scheduled for June 9-11, in Minneapolis, MN. The UCOWR 2020 Warren A. Hall Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement would have been presented to WRRC Director Sharon B. Megdal at the conference, but this week the UCOWR Board of Directors made the decision to cancel and offer full refunds to registrants and exhibitors.
Instead they will be hosting some of the planned sessions virtually, including a webinar by Director Megdal, who was to be a plenary speaker. The 2021 UCOWR/NIWR conference is planned for June 8-10 in Greenville, SC. Taking a different approach, the WRRC's annual conference
is being held in its entirety on June 18-19, 2020, when it will go forward in 2 half-days of live and interactive virtual sessions. UCOWR/NIWR is the Universities Council on Water Resources and National Institutes for Water Resources.
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Fixing Leaks Makes Every Drop Count
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Arizona Project WET AmeriCorps members are hard at work transforming in-classroom instruction into virtual lessons! Kristen Morale has led the effort to bring the Make Every Drop Count, leak detection investigation online. Through two introductory videos she engages viewers in a discussion of water conservation and why it's important here in Arizona. With the last two videos, she demonstrates how to quantify a leak and use math to figure out how much water could be wasted from that leak in a month and a year! She makes it look easy but behind the scenes, Kristen Morale has created and reworked her scripts based on feedback, recorded the video lessons, and edited the final product. Rather than seeing her inexperience in video production as an insurmountable obstacle, she adapted to the current situation and found new ways to educate even more students around the state. To see these newly honed skills in action visit
https://arizonawet.arizona.edu/awf/water-scene-investigation-program/make-every-drop-count
to explore our program Make Every Drop Count. And stay tuned for another AmeriCorps member, Nat Tilden's Groundwater lessons!
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Coworkers of
Betsy Wilkening, Arizona Project WET education coordinator, shares the story of her coworkers this week. My mornings begin at sunrise to the sounds of my younger Labrador Retriever, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka Ruthie, whining outside my door to wake me up. Ruthie and her buddy, Gidget, need breakfast and then Ruthie is ready for her morning run. We're out for a 4-mile jaunt through our neighborhood before it gets too hot. Gidget, an 11-year old lab, goes for a much more leisurely stroll with my husband and greets us upon our return. The rest of the day they sleep peacefully in my home office until I wake them with a tug-of-war game, petting session, or the occasional spontaneous dance party. They are great coworkers, but would be better if their alarm clock ability shut itself off on the weekend.
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