{"id":1062,"date":"2020-04-29T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T14:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.seagrant.w3.uvm.edu\/2020\/04\/29\/ashley-eaton-connects-people-to-place-through-citizen-science\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T21:49:23","slug":"ashley-eaton-connects-people-to-place-through-citizen-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/2020\/04\/29\/ashley-eaton-connects-people-to-place-through-citizen-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashley Eaton Connects People to Place Through Citizen Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tYou can find Ashley Eaton, Watershed and Lake Education Coordinator for Lake Champlain Sea Grant<\/a>, in a K-12 classroom, at a waterfront laboratory, along a local stream, or on board a research vessel on Lake Champlain. In each location, surrounded by engaged students and their teachers, she introduces them to watershed science in the Lake Champlain basin.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the work that I do here in the basin, citizen science is a fundamental component,\u201d said Ashley. \u201cOur goal is to increase awareness and knowledge of watershed issues in youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAshley oversees the Watershed Alliance<\/a> program at both the University of Vermont (UVM) and the State University of New York (SUNY) Plattsburgh. Ashley provides curricula, equipment, and instructors to schools and youth groups participating in the program\u00a0and supports\u00a0teachers who wish to integrate watershed education into their own teaching curriculum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWatershed Alliance provides learning in watershed science to the basin\u2019s youngest citizens. Each year, Ashley and her two full-time education staff, Caroline Blake at UVM and Nate Trachte at SUNY Plattsburgh, reach 3000 K-12 students throughout the Lake Champlain basin in Vermont and New York.<\/p>\n

\n\tAshley also coordinates watershed science professional development opportunities<\/a> for K-12 teachers. Through K-12 programs and teacher-based courses, she and her staff engage more than 125 teachers throughout the Lake Champlain basin each year. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCitizen science is so valuable because it engages individuals from the community in evaluating their local ecosystems,\u201d said Ashley. \u201cIt connects people to place and is a conduit to build awareness and knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBy using place and citizen science, I am able to foster a deeper relationship between those participating in the program and their watershed,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat makes this so powerful is that it often leads to higher rates of behavior change\u2014when you love and value something, you take care of it.”<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Northeast Sea Grant program recently nominated Ashley as a finalist for the National Sea Grant Outstanding Outreach Achievement Award for her efforts through Watershed Alliance to bring science surrounding local water issues to the people who live and work and go to school in the basin. The award recipient will be announced during national Sea Grant Week in September 2020.<\/p>\n

\n\tAshley and her staff also oversee a watershed education internship program<\/a> for undergraduate students who wish to gain career-building, real world experience and training in environmental education. Interns help to teach the K-12 programs as Watershed Educators. Each year, Ashley and her staff hire 10 to 20 undergraduate students to work with them in the classroom and field to involve K-12 students and their teachers in aquatic science.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether they meet students in the classroom, at the UVM Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory<\/a> and SUNY\u2019s Lake Champlain Research Institute<\/a>, or aboard the UVM research vessel Melosira<\/em> on Lake Champlain, Ashley and her staff and trained undergraduate Watershed Educators\u00a0bring to life current research and freshwater stressors that impact the Lake Champlain basin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a bridge between research and the community,\u201d said Ashley, \u201cour program aims to\u00a0connect K-12 teachers and their students with real world challenges and engage students in hands-on field science and stewardship to improve water quality in the basin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA native Vermonter, Ashley spent summers with her family on the Georgia shore of Lake Champlain. Her early forays into the natural world around water inspired her career path. She earned a BS in elementary education with a concentration in the environmental sciences and a MS in natural resources from the University of Vermont.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe now sees the Georgia shore of her childhood facing severe water quality challenges and the impacts of cyanobacteria blooms and climate change. She has dedicated her educational and professional pursuits to helping create a sustainable future for Vermont, the greater Lake Champlain basin, and beyond.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s really important to me that the work I do aligns with my values of sustainability, inclusion, and place,\u201d said Ashley. \u201cOne aspect that I appreciate about my job is that every day is different. Each day, I engage and work collaboratively with folks from a variety of organizations and communities from across the basin and Vermont.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond Watershed Alliance\u2019s regular Stream Monitoring and Stewardship <\/em>K-12 <\/em>program, Ashley runs other outreach and education opportunities<\/a> including Lake Champlain Live<\/em> aboard the Melosira<\/em>, Keeping the Balance<\/em> at the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Lab, Zoom a Scientist<\/em>, and several K-12 teacher professional development courses. Ashley collaborates with local partners to offer the 4-H programs Teens Reaching Youth<\/em> and Science on Lake Champlain<\/em> and summer camp programs with the Community Sailing Center on the Lake Champlain waterfront, among others.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWatershed Alliance has two hub locations, one at the <\/em>University of Vermont<\/em><\/a>, a partnership between\u00a0<\/em>UVM Extension<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0UVM <\/em>Rubenstein School of\u00a0Environment and Natural Resources<\/em><\/a>, and one, based out of <\/em>SUNY Plattsburgh<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<\/em>Lake Champlain Research Institute<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can find Ashley Eaton, Watershed and Lake Education Coordinator…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1383,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/1383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}