Learning about the state we serve
Nancy Langston, a professor of environmental history at Michigan Tech in Houghton, Michigan, shares how she finds inspiration to fight climate change in the collaborative efforts–past and present–of Native communities who live along the shores of Lake Superior, including the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Langston is a Wisconsin Idea …
Wisconsin Idea Seminar 2018 collaborators Gina Green-Harris and Stephanie L. Houston, together with others, produced a new opinion article in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. “Addressing Disparities in Alzheimer’s Disease and African-American Participation in Research: An Asset-Based Community Development Approach” The article describes the development and implementation of an asset-based community development (ABCD) approach for increasing …
What was it like growing up on your family’s farm, Mystic Valley Dairy? I feel so blessed to have grown up on my family’s dairy farm right outside Sauk City, about 20 miles north of Madison. From a young age, I had the opportunity to be immersed in the world of agriculture through the Wisconsin …
Jennifer Van Os, an assistant professor of dairy science, visits milk producers around the state to study cow comfort. In May, she will accompany the Wisconsin Idea Seminar to Rosy-Lane Holsteins in Watertown, Wisconsin, where she has collaborated with owners Daphne and Lloyd Holterman on a number of research projects that look at cow …
Claus Andersen spoke to Wisconsin Public Radio about hygge, the notion of pleasant togetherness, that is embedded in Scandinavian culture and which has recently caught on in the United States. Andersen, an assistant professor of Scandinavian Studies, traveled along with the Wisconsin Idea Seminar in 2018. Listen to Andersen’s WPR interview where he discusses hygge.
Mitch Bruenig, owner of Mystic Valley Dairy in Sauk City, is one of 5000 farmers in Wisconsin that have joined forces with Wisconsin-based Revolution Plastics to recycle plastic feed bags and other agricultural plastics. Breunig hosted the 2018 Wisconsin Idea Seminar at his farm to help participants learn about the valuable ways he collaborates …
Justin Isherwood, farmer and writer living in central Wisconsin, is helping UW researchers study how much water from rain and irrigation enters the crop before being transferred into the atmosphere, and how much seeps deep into the soil and recharges the groundwater. Isherwood was a panelist during the 2018 Wisconsin Idea Seminar to discuss how …
Our 2018 Wisconsin Idea Seminar collaborators Ian Karl and Toben Lafrancois talk to ‘Central Time’ about how youth in a an underwater therapeutic photography program at Northwest Passage, a residential mental health facility in northern Wisconsin, capture breathtaking images that have eluded professional researchers for years. Karl and Lafrancois will team up to lead the …
The University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute, which receives funding from the federally-funded national Sea Grant, recently awarded $2.8 million to a variety of Great Lakes research and education projects, including “Under the Surface,” an underwater therapeutic photography program for youth at Northwest Passage, a residential mental health facility in northern Wisconsin. “Under the Surface” …
The 2018 Wisconsin Idea Seminar is set to visit Mystic Valley Dairy in Sauk City as it begins the 5-day tour of the state. Owner Mitch Breunig will give a tour of the farm covering topics like cow comfort, sustainability, dairy economics, and his farm’s research collaborations with UW–Madison. One such collaboration has been the …