At the meeting Mr. Brennan introduced us to the different elements that would make up our volunteer time. He started by showing us a PowerPoint presentation that laid out some of the facts about the Alliance, their goals, and also some information about Lake Michigan.
About twenty UWM students were at the event, and from that group we will be broken into several groups of three or four students. Our responsibilities will be as follows:
- Fill out a routine visit from upon each visit (Found at: http://www.greatlakes.org/Document.Doc?id=604)
- Fill out a litter monitoring form and pick up litter upon each visit (Found at: http://www.greatlakes.org/Document.Doc?id=378)
- For local Milwaukee purposes, fill out an aesthetics monitoring form
The forms are detailed, but have a nice and consistent layout. The routine visit form asks about details such as temperature, current, wind, algae presence, wild-life presence, and human presence. The litter monitoring form asks for specifics on what kind of litter and how much litter is picked up. Finally, the aesthetics monitoring form takes track of how enjoyable and pleasant the beach actually is.
Image from: http://www.swwtwater.org/home/
One of the more unfortunate facts that we learned is that Milwaukee beaches can be extremely dirty and most of that dirt and filth is from cigarette butts. According to Mr. Brennan, Milwaukee beaches have some of the highest numbers of cigarette butts when compared to other beaches on the Great Lakes. It will be interesting to see whether or not that holds true when we're out combing the beach.
Now that the training is complete, I look forward to our first go on the beach! In a few days Mr. Brennan will be informing us of our beach assignments, and we'll be able to start after Saturday the 13th.
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