About Us

The University of Vermont Watershed Alliance (UVM WA) is an Extension program in partnership with Lake Champlain Sea Grant and the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. Our primary objective to increase awareness and knowledge of watershed issues in Vermont youth. UVM WA provides curriculum, equipment, and instructors to schools and youth groups participating in our programs, as well as support and guidance to teachers who wish to integrate watershed education into their current curriculum.

UVM WA also provides internship opportunities to UVM undergraduate students who wish to gain valuable, hands-on experience and training in environmental education. Interns serve as Watershed Educators providing educational programming in schools and other academic settings throughout Vermont.  All of our programs include both classroom and field components, and center on science as inquiry.

During our Stream Monitoring and Stewardship Program, students are introduced to key watershed concepts through our interactive watershed model, learn field science methods, and design a research project in the classroom, before moving to the field for hands-on, water quality monitoring. The culminating experience for participants is a student-led community outreach project, which gives students the opportunity to share their valuable watershed knowledge with their community.  In the past, participants have been featured in local newspapers including the Times Argus, the Rutland Herald, and the Burlington Free Press. Other participants present their findings to their local planning commissions, school boards, watershed groups, parents, and to over 10,000 Vermonters via a television program.