Progress 01/01/24 to 12/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audiences include: rural Wisconsin communities, rural development scholars and researchers, rural families, rural school mental health professionals, rural school districts including administrators, teachers, and rural Wisconsin high school students, community health workers, rural agencies, native nations, tribal organizations, and tribal members, extension and outreach professionals, Wisconsin specialty crop (potato, cherry, apple, cranberry) growers, Midwest food processors, national weather service forecast offices, university faculty and scientists, foresters, farmers, state agencies such as the Wisconsin drought task force, the insurance industry, the general public, agricultural advisors, state agencies, private industry including Madison gas and electric, Snow & Ice management association, Emmons & Olivier resources, Institute of Wisconsin architects, USDA-NRCS, master naturalists, producer-led watershed groups, agricultural associations,food supply chain partners, community members facing obstacles to health services in Adams, Wood and Menominee counties, county emergency managers, regional planning commissions, state emergency management agencies, local public health officers, extension and outreach teachers, statewide coordinators of mental health, economic development practitioners and elected officials. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Weather:A Graduate Student is engaged in researching trends in atmospheric patterns influencing Wisconsin's weather. An intern was mentored who developed a weather analogs tool to identify how Wisconsin's historical weather compares to the rest of the United States.An undergraduate Geography student, worked closely with our State Climatology Office director on a research project to characterize variations in extreme weather in Wisconsin. This student has developed and applied computing skills and was a co-author of our first State Climatology Office research poster, which was presented at the 2024 American Meteorological Society's Annual Meeting.A student intern developed a weather analogs tool as a capstone project. A Masters student in the Department of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, began his research on atmospheric weather patterns in Wisconsin. Agriculture: Several graduate students and post-doctorates were mentored on agronomic and water quality practices and experimental methodologies, developing a new cohort of scientists and practitioners that can practically address groundwater challenges in the context of an affordable and reliable food supply.This project has also provided training opportunities for Tribal producers and communities including supporting the Indigenous Producer Academy in July, Maple Syrup Season Debrief in May, and Insect Ambassadors entomology training with the Ho-Chunk Department of Agriculture, and connection to UW research stations for seed drying and cleaning. The project has provided training and professional development opportunities for students, project staff, and university communities through the Indigenous Research Forum, volunteer work parties at the Arboretum Indigenous Research Garden, Ho-Chunk planting days in May, Wild Rice Camp at UW-Superior, corn braiding demonstration on the UW Union Terrace, attendance of the Marbleseed Organic Farming Conference and Vermont RISE Summit, Tribal Relations Training at the UW Arboretum, and mentorship of three graduate students. Rural Community Health workersin this project are participating in the Milwaukee Area Health Education Center community health worker training series andhavecompleted the Foundations in Extension Education onboarding cohort. We partnered withtheWI Department of Workforce Development and United Way ofWisconsinto provide community health workers with the opportunity to complete a registered apprenticeship, extending workforce and professional development efforts.Community health workers also completed training in evidence-based health promotion programs to promote holistic health and well-being. Examples of health promotion program training completedincludeStrong Bodies, tai chi, WeCOPE, Mental Health First Aid, Planning Ahead, Mending Broken Hearts,andmotivational interviewing(among others). Rural Livability: Weekly meetings include opportunities for professional development via presentations, workshopping ideas, and discussing challenges in the profession. The students and postdoc on this project have opportunities to present their work at professional conferences. We also include them in project activities that will cultivate professional skills such as additional grant writing, website development, and reporting. Our team has also organized sessions on rural livability at different academic conferences so that we can learn from other scholars and share our own work to improve research in this field. We also organized the Wisconsin Rural Economic Summit and partnered on theWisconsin Agricultural Outlook Conference where the afternoon sessions focused on Rural Livability which brought together leading rural development scholars from outside Wisconsin, researchers from the Rural Livability team, economic development practitioners, and community partners for presentations and discussion on rural livability that can be applied to their local communities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Rural Partnerships Institute works closely with many stakeholders to give invited presentations across Wisconsin. OurState Climatology Office (SCO),has engaged with weekly Wisconsin Agriculture-Climate Outlooks, a biweekly University of Wisconsin (UW) Extension Badger Crop Connect webinar series, Master Naturalists and Gardeners trainings, and numerous types of media interviews to provide these organizations with weather data and interpretation. Furthermore, the SCO receives inquiries nearly every day from the general public, businesses, insurance agencies, law offices, and other organizations seeking weather and climate information. We have also built and networked over 50 new weather stations during this project, named theWisconet.Wisconet has interacted with numerous stakeholders on a regular basis, including the National Weather Service through bi-annual webinars and office visits,broadcast media through annual webinars, growers within agriculture during site visits and ad-hoc meetings, and local and national partners during ad-hoc meetings and scheduled workshops.Numerous discussions were held with key stakeholders, including specialty crop growers (cranberry, cherry, apple), to identify further opportunities for collaboration, to share knowledge, and locate future installation sites.Synoptic Data's dashboard shows an ever-increasing number of measurements received from Wisconet (now over 300,000 measurements per month), and WisconetSite statisticsnow average over 300 users per day.The SCO website received over 160,000 hits in 2024. The SCOWisconsin Agriculture Weather Outlooks has 157 on its email list and up to 100 viewing posts per week, each week.TheBadger Crop Connect presentations have 50-100 attendees per webinar.Public inquiries to the SCO (email, phone calls) are around 20 per month. Presentations this year reached approximately 68,000 people. The monthly weather summaries had an open rate of 2,771. The 79 articles containing interviews reached 16 million people based on circulation rates. Website views were 12,000 to 13,000 per month, and social media reach is 275,000+ (X and Instagram). For our focus on preparing forExtreme weatherwe have statewide or regional groups of stakeholder groups across our three priority sectors 1) Agriculture, 2) Emergency Managers and Hazard Planners, and 3) Schools and Rural Youth. We have distributed a one-page information sheet of the project background and goals to entities representing these groups in the state and conducted follow-up conversations with many of them to explore more formal partnerships. Those groups include the Wisconsin Emergency Management Regions, Regional Planning Commissions, and Producer-led Watershed Groups. We also engaged K-12 students in the New Lisbon school district in November 2024 in an outreach activity in which students and analyze their own weather data. This also provided professional development for teachers to expand their community-based science programs and take part in research. In ourRural Livabilityproject, we have participated in an advisory capacity for this year's Small Community Forums which included recruiting the participating communities, developing the agenda, and advertising events. This year the forums feature Rewriting the Rural Narrative from Ben Winchester (U-MN) and Melissa Kono (UW-Extension), a body of work that complements theRural LivabilityProject. Our team supported the inaugural Rural Entrepreneurial Ventures in partnership with Compeer Financial and UW-Extension. We also supported the Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities Conference in spring 2024, with more than 200 rural economic developers, community leaders, and entrepreneurs participating. We also supportedthe Community Economic Analysis for Rural Wisconsin Communities (CEA-RWC) pilot program, which equips small communities with tools to plan for a prosperous future, focusing on strengthening local economic development efforts to enhance rural livability. Throughout the program, community leaders collaborate with members and stakeholders to understand the environment, identify priorities and draft a plan. Another engagement,Cornucopia Design Charrette,assists participating communities in articulating a common vision for their community, often focused on a specific challenge, that enhances livability. In ourRural Student Mental Health projectwe are training school mental health professionals in a family-centered intervention to promote family wellness, youth mental health, and family-school connections. Schools are eager for the training and appear ready to implement once trained. In our RuralHealth projectwe aredeveloping communication materials to share project overview and progress with various stakeholders including webpage development, 1-page overview, presentation template, and outreach materials. OurIndigenous Food Systems Resilienceteam has engaged in over 20 community and stakeholder events from the start of this project, including Members anIndigenous Research Forumat UW-Madison featuring 15 Tribal speakers addressing Indigenous research and data sovereignty. This event reached 150 attendees from Tribal communities and the UW-Madison community. Our Manoomin (Wild Rice) Team focused their engagement and outreach work this summer on gaining input from Tribal community members on how to address questions about contaminants in the St. Louis River Estuary affecting the health of wild rice and people who eat it. Their outreach efforts reached Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa elders and community members, the 1854 Treaty Authority Board, Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, Wisconsin and Minnesota Departments of Natural Resources, and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. This team partnered with the UW-Superior Indigenous Cultures Resources Center to host a rice camp in September for students to learn how to harvest and finish manoomin. We also engaged with Tribal producers while supporting an Indigenous Food Producer Academy in July organized by the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition and Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Advisory Council. We hosted a Maple Season Debrief in May featuring five Tribal panelists that reached 23 Tribal producer participants. We are continuing to expand the Tribal Maple Syrup Network facilitated by Extension to reach more Tribal producers and serve their needs. Ourproject website,linked to the main WRPI web page (https://ruralpartners.wisc.edu) is now active.Our partnership with the Ho-Chunk Department of Agriculture was featured on Milwaukee NPR in September (listen here). Our recently initiated Central SandsWater Qualityproject has engaged stakeholders with an article on the Central Sands water quality project in the Badger Common'tater trade magazine that is distributed internationally. In late spring 2024, the project was featured in a Wisconsin Public Radio show that stimulated much grower and partner engagement, including farmer-led watershed groups. Our work was featured at the UW-Madison Potato and vegetable growers field day with an estimated attendance of 125 stakeholders. Additionally, vegetable food processors have become engaged via raw product committee meeting updates and field days at several times during the season, and the project will be featured in a presentation at the upcoming Midwest Food Products Association Processing Crops Conference. A presentation on the project was also delivered at the Potato Association of America meeting in July. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For our first goal, we will continue to work with various community partners on issues related to enhancing rural communities. This includes a planto present our working papers on measures ofRural Livability, housing, and the rural-urban connection in livability at professional conferences and submit them for publication. We are again planning to organize the annual Wisconsin Rural Economic Summit again this year. Alongside interdisciplinary collaborators, we are developing a book on rural livability that will speak to academics, practitioners, and graduate students or advanced undergraduate students. Other activities include the launch of our website in the next period which will make our findings available, usable, and interactive for the public, as well as a podcast to facilitate conversations that combine the rural-lived experience with research. We will also continue our support for existing outreach programs including theConnecting Entrepreneurial Communities Conference, the Rural Entrepreneurial Ventures Program, the Community Economic Analysis Program, and the community Design Charrettes. For ourCentrals Sandsproject we will be installing lysimeters to evaluate the potential for a combination of innovative practices to decrease nitrate leaching from the Water Stewards Innovation Farms.Water Stewards Innovation Farm sites, where the comprehensive approaches to improving water quality will be studied and evaluated in commercial agricultural fields and with farmer input, were secured in advance of the lysimeter installation and study initiation described in Accomplishments. These Water Stewards farms will ground this project among community members. To addressIndigenous Food Resilienceour project team will continue to support our Tribal partners needs through collaborative research, connecting to University resources, and co-hosting trainings and workshops for Tribal producers and communities. To continue to enhanceRural Health, we will finalize qualitative data analysis from focus groups and our community health worker landscape assessment. We intend to generate scientific reports and plain language summary reports for community partners to disseminate findings. Community health workers will continue their health promotion outreach and education efforts, building from community-identified needs. Expert advisory board meetings will occur twice a year.To enhanceRural Student Mental Health, during the next reporting period we will focus on providing additional training and support to school professionals as they build family-school-community systems, implement family-centered interventions for families in rural low-income conditions, and evaluate outcomes. We will also be collecting information to help guide implementation and evaluation activities. Regarding statewide capacity, we will develop a statewide team based on our existing statewide partnerships, to build capacity statewide for family-centered and family-school-community support for student mental health in rural communities with few resources and for families living in low-income conditions. In summer 2025 we will host our first cohort ofWisconsin Rural Scholarsto the UW-Madison campus. This group of 25-30 rising high school seniors and 6 teachers will live on campus from June 16-19th.After this June program, we will explore how we can continue to serve rural school districts' college-planning efforts during the school year. For our second goal of developing the weather station network namedWisconet, we will complete the initial build-out phase of Wisconet stations through the installation of at least 22 more weather stations across the state. We will continue to develop our front-end website to meet the needs of key stakeholders, with new features such as expanded maps, decision support tools, agricultural tools, and improved soil moisture interpretations.For our third goal of supporting farmers and growers with weather data, especiallyExtreme Weather, we will use feedback obtained from stakeholders and an assessment of needs to start building out tools that can help rural communities prepare for and track weather events. Our fourthgoal is to utilize theState Climatology Officeto inform farmers, growers and producers. During this next reporting period the State Climatology Office priority will be training two new Climate Outreach Specialists, who will engage in outreach activities. A new Postdoctoral Scientist will be researching extreme weather impacting rural Wisconsin. We are also applying for the office to be recognized by the American Association of State Climatologists as a "Recognized State Climate Office."
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our first goal is to support community-based projects that look for viable solutions to key issues in Wisconsin to improve the quality of life for rural residents. To enhanceRural Livabilitywedeveloped a tool (WIndicator) on prosperity which is being used by a local philanthropy group to inform investment decisions. We also supported theWisconsin Agricultural Outlook Conference, and the Wisconsin Rural Economic Summit which brought together leading rural development scholars and community partners such as the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative. The summit included an overview of the latest economic and demographic trends across rural communities, and an examination of rural health care, housing, and broadband. Conversations included what rural communities can do to foster economic growth and development.Our research informs and interfaces with the Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities Conference,a conference "about small towns, for small towns." This conference offers programming, discussion, and networking for stakeholders in Wisconsin's rural business development to support rural livability. To addressRural Student Mental Healthissueswe are engaging in a community-based project to build capacity for sustained implementation of integrated family-centered and family-school-community mental health support for children in rural Wisconsin. We leveraged existing and developed new rural community and statewide partnerships and have also developed new partnerships with rural school professionals specifically focused on family-centered and family-school-community support. School professionals continue to note these areas in significant need within their rural communities. We have identified strategies to promote sustained implementation of schoolwide social and behavior supports and family engagement strategies. We have consulted with and supported school professionals as they build family-centered and family-school-community integrated support for family and student mental health in rural areas, particularly for families who have low income and few community resources. We have provided training to school professionals to develop an infrastructurefor integrated mental health support and promote family engagement in family-centered interventions to support family wellness and student mental health. We have also providedconsultation and coaching to school professionals to implement practices to support families and evaluate outcomes. To supportRural Healthneeds we havehiredthreecommunity health workers. These workers provide health educationandreferrals to health services and engage community-based organizationsto promote health, in areas where this capacity is severely limited. Wealso completed focus groups with 78 rural residents intwocommunities to identify community health needs.Community health workers reached >600 individuals through education and outreach efforts and engaged >40 community partners.Examplehealth promotion effortsinclude a physical activity program that builds strength and promotes social connection among older adult rural residents, connecting migrantagricultural workers to COVID-relief funding,arranging health screening for agricultural workers via partnering with a mobile clinic,and facilitating talking circles to enhance mental health. One key challenge for theCentral Sandsportion of our state is contamination of groundwater resources by nitrogen (N) loss from farm fields.Several field and laboratory experiments were established and conducted this year on a broad suite of agronomically feasible groundwater quality improvement practices, ranging from the use of soil amendments like glycerol and paper mill byproducts to capture Nn in the crop root zone, interseeded cover crops that can provide continuous living ground cover to bridge N among primary crops in the rotation, and practical ways to remove potato vines such that they can then be used as N sources for following crops. One key component of these studies is that they are performed with practical input from farmer collaborators.We are also usingcomputer modeling studies to explorefarm-scale and regional scenarios of different proposed and practiced N management solutions and weather change on ecosystem service tradeoffs including yield, water quality (i.e., nitrate leaching loss to groundwater), and water quantity (i.e., demand for irrigation to sustain yields) in key Central Sands cropping systems. OurIndigenous Food Systems Resilienceproject worked to build strong partnerships with our Tribal partners this year to support their educational, outreach, and research needs. Two partners will receive intertribal equipment for corn production and for Tribal maple sugar production. We supported harvesting of 1400 lbs of processed corn for the Ho-Chunk community and planted cover crop demonstration gardens at 3 sites. Our team hosted 5 community events, engaged in35 Tribal partner events, and engaged 25 volunteers. To support the development ofRural Scholars in Wisconsinwe developedand deliveredapre-college needs assessmentto gather feedback from high school administrators, teachers, and students from rural Wisconsin school districts. Conversations with students, teachers, and administrators focused on what interventions would be most effective. This helped shape the vision for our initialprogram and logistical plans for our firstWisconsin Rural Scholars event, which will take place in June 2025. This pre-college program will engage 30 rural Wisconsin students and six high school teachers. Our second goal is to develop a comprehensive statewide network of weather and soil monitoring stations across the state called the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet, orWisconet.38 weather stations were installed this year bringing our total number to 58. Stations are collecting a suite of meteorological and soil temperature and moisture data at 5-minute intervals and making that available through the Wisconet website. Ourthird goal is to use information collected fromWisconetand other weather information sources to assist farmers with everyday decision making, and to help in protection of crops, forestry resources, property, and people's lives. This year we engaged statewide or regional groups of stakeholders across our three priority sectors, including 1) Agriculture, 2) Emergency Managers and Hazard Planners, and 3) Schools and Rural Youth. To better understand the needs of the Emergency Management/Hazard Planning sectors, we developed and distributed a survey to identify their familiarity with, and use of, existing weather data and tools. We presented 90-minute interactive sessions at the Wisconsin Emergency Management Association (WEMA) conference in September 2024 to gather information from emergency managers on topics related to this project. Weevaluated existing weather data products through surveys and interviews, and launched a survey of extreme weather impacts for farmers and agricultural advisors. We completed a preliminary development of support tools and data for flood mitigation on the Rock River related to agricultural impacts, and coordinated withWisconetand theState Climatology Officeon deployment of weather monitoring stations, and addressed common hazards of concern. Our fourth goal extends our focus on weather and involvescollaborating with the WisconsinState Climatology Office(SCO) to support Wisconsin farmers. This office gives extensive weather briefings to various target audiences. The SCOengaged weekly in reporting Wisconsin Agriculture-Weather Outlooks. Furthermore, the SCO receives inquiries nearly every day from the general public, businesses, insurance agencies, law offices, and other organizations seeking weather information.The SCO is also developing a new partnership with the National Weather Service's Wisconsin offices to increase collaboration and support their stakeholder engagement.
Publications
- Type:
Other Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2025
Citation:
Alkhaled, A., and Y. Wang. 2025. Developing a robust yield prediction model for potatoes (Solanum tuberosum L.) using multi-faceted and multi-year data. Smart Agricultural Technology. 10C: 100734.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
wisconet.wisc.edu
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Kucharik C.J. 2024. Wisconet: weather and soil monitoring for Wisconsin. Wisconsin Rural Partnerships Institute Advisory Board, November 8, 2024. Arlington, Wisconsin
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Kucharik C.J. 2024. Development of a mesonet of environmental monitoring stations to support Wisconsin Agriculture. Allen Centennial Gardens Lunch and Learn Seminar Series (in person). October 8, 2024. Madison, Wisconsin
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Kucharik C.J. 2024. Wisconet: Weather and soil monitoring for Wisconsin. US Senate Agricultural Appropriations Committee staff, June 11, 2024. Madison, Wisconsin (in person).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Kucharik C.J. 2024. Weathering together: transforming Wisconsins agriculture and energy with integrated weather stations. Wisconsin Energy Institute Forward in Energy Forum, February 27, 2024 (presentation and moderated panel). Madison, WI. In person and virtual (hybrid).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Vagasky, C.A. 2024. Town Hall Meeting Data Quality and Data Assurance for Soil Moisture Datasets. 104th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society. Baltimore, Maryland. January 31, 2024.
- Type:
Other Journal Articles
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Schmidt, D., Conroy, T., Deller, S. C. Place Prosperity Pathways: Revisiting the Isserman, Feser, and Warren, Prosperity Index using Social Sequence Analysis. International Regional Science Review.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Boyce, M. (Author/Presenter), Deller, S. C. (Author), Conroy, T. (Author), 2024 Meeting of the Southern Regional Science Association, "The Drivers of Quality of Life Under Modeling Uncertainty," Southern Regional Science Association, Crystal Gateway Marriott, Arlington, VA. (April 2024).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Boyce, M. (Author/Presenter) & Deller, S. C. (Author), 2024 Meeting of the Southern Regional Science Association, Earnings, Rent, and Unemployment: Does the Introduction of Unemployment Alter Roback-Type Measures of Quality of Life?
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Cheng, Yang. (Author/Presenter), Conroy, T. (Author), Deller, S. C. (Author), 2024 Annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International, "Measures and Determinants of Quality of Life in the U.S. under Modeling Uncertainty," North American Regional Science Council, The New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA. (November 2024).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Boyce, M. (Author/Presenter), 2024 Meeting of the North American RegionalScience Association, " Earnings, Rent, and Unemployment: Improving County-Level Quality of Life Estimates and Determining their Drivers." North American Regional Science Council, The New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA. (November 2024).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Vagasky, C.A. 2024. Wisconet: Weather and Soil Monitoring for Wisconsins Forests. 2024 Spring County Forest Administrators Meeting. Madison, Wisconsin. February 14, 2024.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Other
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Vagasky, C.A. 2024. Wisconet Spring 2024 Update. In-person meeting with National Weather Service forecast office Milwaukee/Sullivan, Wisconsin, May 2, 2024.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Wisconet website with maps, data downloads, and data graphs suitable for the general public. https://wisconet.wisc.edu
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Website on Wisconsin Central Sands groundwater quality: https://agwater.extension.wisc.edu/agriculture-nitrogen-management-strategies-in-wisconsin-central-sands/
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
WRPI Indigenous Food Systems Project website: https://foodsystems.extension.wisc.edu/indigenous-food-systems-resilience/
- Type:
Other Journal Articles
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Conroy, T., Landini, A., McDermott, M. Nonemployer Businesses Increasing in Number in Rural America. Choices Magazine.
|
Progress 01/01/23 to 12/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audiences include:rural Wisconsin communities, rural development scholars and researchers, rural families and school mental health professionals, rural schools and local organizations,Community Health Workers (CHWs), rural agencies, Native Nations, Tribal Organizations, and Tribal members; Extension and outreach professionals; WI specialty crop (potato, cherry, apple, cranberry) growers; Midwest food processors; National Weather Service forecast offices;University faculty and scientists; Foresters; Farmers; State agencies such as the Wisconsin Drought Task Force; the Insurance industry and the general public. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In our rural livability project, the PI iscoordinating several ongoing, but not fully connected, research and Extension efforts around place-making and "4th Wave" economic development. Both graduate and undergraduate students are engaged and able to build better networks and build synergies in this new area. In addition, the student research team is from different departments and so benefit from participating in a multidisciplinary project. In our Promoting Rural Child Mental Health project graduate students have received training in family-centered interventions and qualitative methodology. In the next reporting cycle school mental health professionals in rural communities will be trained and receive support in implementing a family-centered intervention. In our Community Health Workers project we are providing training for community health workers. A graduate student is receiving trainning in landscape analysis and ethics. In our Indigenous Food Systems work we aresupporting the Ho-Chunk Department of Agriculture in learning to operate a small combine to harvest Indigenous corn, and how to dry, clean harvested corn. In our weather station, project personnel have benefitted professionally from working together on Wisconet and learning from each other on a daily basis. The instrumentation engineer has had to learn new operating systems that control the data logging systems and ensure that data collected is interfacing correctly with the cloud and website. The engineer has also been trained through courses offered by one of our suppliers. The web developer has had to understand the details of data collection at each Wisconet station, and has modified programming to use several different cloud services. Through this process, he has identified the need to take additional Python programming training in 2024. The Wisconet program manager has had to rectify several issues and find solutions while working across multiple instrumentation vendors. All of these activities have advanced understanding of the complex network we are building and will help to provide a more stable platform moving forward. In our new State Climatology Office, an undergraduate Geography student, has worked closely with the director on a research project to characterize variations in extreme weather in Wisconsin. The student has applied and developed computing skills in the process and was a co-author of the first research poster to come out of the office, which was presented at the January 2024 American Meteorological Society's Annual Meeting: "A New Index to Characterize Variations in Extreme Weather and its Application in Wisconsin". How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?On our weather project our team has made a variety of presentations to a variety of stakeholders in the midwest: Kucharik, C.J. 2023. Development of a Mesonet of Environmental Monitoring stations to Support Wisconsin Agriculture (Wisconet). Midwest Food Processors Annual Conference, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. November 29, 2023 Kucharik, C.J. 2023. Development of a Mesonet of Environmental Monitoring stations across Wisconsin for enhanced weather forecasting. National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, National Weather Service forecast offices (Milwaukee/Sullivan, La Crosse, Green Bay, Minneapolis), virtual, April 27, 2023 Kucharik, C.J. 2023. Development of a Mesonet of Environmental Monitoring stations to Support Wisconsin Agriculture. Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Annual Conference. Stevens Point, WI. February 7, 2023 Vagasky, C.A. 2023. A new mesonet's perspective on mesonet recommendations and best practices. American Association of State Climatologists Mesonet Meeting, Davenport, Iowa, July 26, 2023 Vagasky, C.A. 2023. From 0 to 90: The Wisconet story. National Weather Association Annual Meeting, Kansas City, Missouri, September 13, 2023. In ourindigenous Foods project, we collaborated and supported logistics and implementation of Wild Rice Camp (Sept 11-15, 2023) with 456 youth from 17 schools participating in the event - push-poling and knocking rice in Rask Bay and learning how to process wild rice at Chamber's Grove. An additional 45 natural resource professionals participated in the learning experience. Partnership and leadership was from the St. Louis River Manoomin Stewardship Team, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe (Chippewa), the 1854 Treaty Authority and guidance from the Tribal Data and Research Oversight Committee. Project members Dan Cornelius and Tricia Gorby attendedthe First Americans Land-Grant Consortium (FALCON) Annual Conference (Oct 13-15, 2023) and supported facilitation of the pre-conference workshop. A group also attended the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition Coordinating Committee meeting (November 6-8, 2023) in Appleton and Keshena. As well, we were part of an Indigenous corn harvest workshop and combine demonstration with Ho-Chunk Nation (Nov 13, 2023) at the Wisconsin Dells. Thirty community members attended to learn how to hand-harvest and braid Indigenous corn from Oneida guest teacher Jen Falck (RPI partner), to see cooking demonstrations by Dan Cornelius (RPI Co-PI), and learn from UW Professors Brian Luck and John Shutske how the RPI project's research combine works. We orgnaized and facilitateda team workshop with Tribal partners (November 29, 2023) at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum. Twenty-six UW Team members and Tribal partners attended to build community, develop a shared Theory of Change, and identify key objectives to integrate into a project Communications Plan and website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In objective 1, in our Rural Livability project, we have two specific lines of empirical work that we are pursuing. We have plans for two manuscripts suitable for publication during the next year. One set will focus on innovations in how to quantify quality-of-life and determine community characteristics associated with quality-of-life.Another set will focus on exploring patterns of rural prosperity which move beyond traditional measures of economic growth. In our Promoting Rural Child Mental Health project. we will train and provide coaching to school mental health professionals. We will collect data to monitor fidelity and outcomes, and prepare to train the next cohort. To support efforts around Community Health Workers, we will finalize recruitment and onboard 3 community health workers; develop an Extension-based community health worker outreach model; conduct community focus groups to identify health priorities and needs; and begin participant engagement and outreach/case findings. For our Indigenous food systems work, the project team is in the process of hiring staff (graduate students, postdoc, technician) needed to conduct the proposed research and outreach and complete evaluations and communications goals. In our Wisconet project, we will be installing 30 new Wisconet stations across different counties for a total of 50 weather stations in the state of Wisconsin by the end of 2024. We will continue to expand outreach and education efforts through partnerships with broadcast media, the National Weather Service, and UW-Extension, with key weather station installations at educational centers and city facilities across the state. We will create a catalog of soil characterizations of samples taken at the location of every soil sensor installed and develop a workshop for end-users on how to interpret soil moisture and temperature data. We will hire an additional web developer to further develop the front facing Wisconet website and expand development of new products and tools that maximizes the delivery of weather and soil data. For next year, our state climatology office has ahigh priority on capacity building, including training the office's new Assistant State Climatologist (Bridgette Mason), mentoring a summer intern, and hiring a new graduate student. We will also apply for the office to be recognized by the American Association of State Climatologists as a "Recognized State Climate Office".
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
For our first objective we have four projects that have these accomplishments: To increase Rural Livability for Wisconsonites and beyond we are estimating a family of quality-of-life measures for all U.S. counties, and identifying community characteristics associated with those measures. An organized session of USDA NIFA supported regional research group NE-2234, to be held at the Southern Regional Science Association annual conference, will bring together a group of rural development economists to explore advances in quality-of-life measures within the context of rural livability. This session will build out the theoretical and empirical foundations for our future work. We are working with colleagues at Oklahoma State University to build out the theoretical and empirical foundations for measuring and studying rural livability. The notion of rural livability has been introduced into a number of community discussions across Wisconsin as part of ongoing work on place-making and the movement toward "4th Wave" economic development efforts. 4th wave economics is sustainable economic development, and includes strategies that enhance environmental quality and self-sufficiency. Many rural community leaders have expressed strong interest in further discussions around moving beyond traditional notions of economic growth to notions of economic development within the context of rural livability.To Promote Rural Child Mental Health:We have established connections with rural schools and communities, and coded and analyzed data to determine goodness of fit for a family-centered intervention in rural schools. We have also made adaptations to a family-centered intervention process. We are on track to train school mental health professionals this summer in preparation for our first cohort in AY 24-25.To Increase Training of Rural Community Health Workers: The Extension Rural Health Connect project team connected with over 10 partners from State, local, and university entities to inform community health worker model development, training/onboarding, and model alignment. We are using 1:1 meetings to develop an expert advisory model. We have conducteda landscape analysis of community health worker efforts in Wisconsin and nationwide, including available training infrastructure and gap assessment. We are engaging partners at state and local levels to identify priority populations for community health worker efforts, and networking with state and local partners to identify potential advisory committee members.To support Indigenous Food Systems: Our project team built capacity by hiring a research project manager and carried out a national search for the project Network Coordinator role. In addition, the team worked closely on the hiring processes for graduate students, a technician, and a postdoc using shared hiring practices to broaden reach to recruit Tribal members. This Indigenous Food Systems project began extension and outreach with Tribal partners to develop shared goals, research questions, and communications goals. We supported harvesting 11 acres of Indigenous corn planted by Ho-Chunk Nation to test mechanization of harvest using research combine. We worked with Arlington Agricultural Research Station to dry, clean, and bag a total of 2300 pounds of corn to be redistributed to the Ho-Chunk community and for intertribal efforts such as the Tribal Elder Food Box Program (implemented by the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition). Our second objective is focused on developing a comprehensive statewide network of environmental monitoring stations across Wisconsin called Wisconet. In 2023, 14 weather stations in Wisconsin were upgraded with new meteorological sensors and soil moisture and temperature sensors, and 6 new Wisconet stations were located and installed all according to standards set by the American Association of State Climatologists. The first phase of the Wisconet website was developed and launched on June 7, 2023.This includes a listing of stations, a map of stations, a page with current readings for each station, and a downloads page for each station where users can download station data by selecting time ranges and fields. A field calibration kit (pressure/temperature/humidity and soil probes) was purchased from Vaisala to support long-term operations of Wisconet and ensure high-quality, accurate data are recorded. In our third objective, Version 1 of the Wisconet Application Programming Interface (API) was completed in 2023.This includes a documentation page explaining how to use the API and a set of machine-readable endpoints that can be used for data integration. Our fourth objective focuses on our new State Climatology Office. The State Climatologist served on the Wisconsin Drought Task Force and presented climate briefings to this group. He also orovided expert guidance to the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor, and engaged in extensive media outreach: approximately 50 interviews have appeared in local, state, and national outlets, including many agriculture-based outlets. The office has hired a Communications Director and developed a social media presence to keep Wisconsites informed of weather-related events. The climatologist has presented at numerous workshops, conferences, webinars, and classes to network and promote the presence of the office. The office has developed collaborations with many external regional and national organizations, including the USDA's Midwest Climate Hub, NOAA's Midwestern Regional Climate Center, National Weather Service offices, and the American Association of State Climatologists. The State Climatologist has also developed collaborations with internal organizations within UW-Madison including Wisconet and the Division of Extension.
Publications
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