Soil and Water Resources Club
The Soil and Water Resources club has been meeting bi-weekly since the beginning of the school year to talk about upcoming club events, conferences, and opportunities for conversations with professionals. A big goal this year is to find more hands-on opportunities for club members to get an idea of the variety of careers in soil and water resource disciplines.
With the generous help of the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS), our club has been able to sign our club members up for national soil and water conservation society professional membership, purchase club t-shirts, and help fund water sampling trips such as last year's kayaking down the Niobrara.
Over the past two years, we were fortunate to get some first-hand experience doing a citizen science water sampling program through the Nebraska Watershed Network, a research initiative focused on mapping water quality of lakes and streams around the state.
Some upcoming events that we are looking into are guest speakers in the natural resource industry, tours of local facilities such as Li-COR, a local wetland cleanup with the aid of an engineering consulting group, and participation in conferences in the area. One social event that we are excited about planning is a group kayaking trip down the Elkhorn River. –Ema Muslic, president
American Fisheries Society
There are two things you need to know about AFS. We like fish and we really like fish. AFS has been active in running multiple fishing clinics, fly fishing and rod and reel, around Lincoln lakes, behind the wheel boat backing and trailering workshop and a personal tour by the managers of the Fish Conservation, Behavior, and Physiology Lab.
Our upcoming plans include:
· NGPC chili feed
· A data management and intro to R workshop
· What you actually need to know about graduate school seminar
· And more fishing!
As always we’d like to thank our sponsors and the people that sponsor the sponsors.
-Alex Engel, president
Soil Judging Team
This has been an exciting year for the University of Nebraska Soil Judging Team, with back-to-back wins at the Region 5 Soil Judging Contest in 2017 and 2018. This fall the team traveled to Manhattan, KS, where 64 students from 8 universities participated in the contest, which includes an individual and group competition. University of Nebraska brought 14 students. Three individuals from the team placed in the top 5 in the individual contest: Sam Teten (Agronomy) placed 1st, Kolby Grint (Agronomy) placed 3rd, and Bryan Petersen (Applied Climate Science) placed 5th. The team placed 3rdin the group portion of the contest and 1st overall. The top 4 teams from Region 5 have been invited to participate in the National Soil Judging Contest which will be held in San Luis Obispo, California next April. All 14 students on the UNL team plan to attend the national contest. The team will be holding two bake sales, one on Dec. 5th (World Soil Day) and the other on Feb. 14th (Valentine’s Day), as well as T-shirt sales and restaurant fundraisers (dates and locations TBA). In addition, the team is seeking sponsors from the local business community (email soiljudging@unl.edu for more information) and also accepts donations through the NU Foundation
UNL Soil Judging Team Excellence Fund #01136440.
-Judy Turk and Becky Young, club advisors
Wildlife Club
The UNL Wildlife Club has had a good semester so far, with high attendance at our welcome back barbecue, despite the rain, and 19 members going on the annual canoe trip. Most recently we had a great time cleaning up Dead Man's Run and the beaver dam, where we even found a bowling ball! The Chili Feed with Nebraska Game and Parks was also very successful. Throughout this semester and the next we have continued helping with conservation outreach through events like Nature Nights. Looking far into the future, we already have our annual banquet date set for April 6, and are working on reserving the Nebraska Union on East Campus. It is looking like a great year for the club!
-Rob Gabel, secretary