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Celebrating Town Creek at High Falls Park

By Sydney Zinner

Watershed stewardship is not all in the “big” wins and success stories. Stewardship can be practiced daily through appreciation and the simple act of noticing and sharing what is around you. 

Town Creek at High Falls Park in Grove Oak, AL. Photo credit: Sydney Zinner

Celebrating Water is an effort to encourage us to share the wonders that water brings to us through photos, poems, art, writing, or however you like to share the waters you cherish. If you have a Celebrating Water moment to share, email us at awwprog@auburn.edu!

Enjoy this story about Town Creek at High Falls Park in Grove Oak, AL!

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2025 Workshop Recap

By Sydney Zinner

2025 was another busy year for AWW Staff, Volunteer Trainers, and Monitors! We appreciate the time and effort our Volunteer Trainers, Monitors, workshop participants, and program partners dedicated to making this another successful year of monitoring trainings and professional development opportunities.

Take a look at the brief recap below, and be on the lookout for more details in our 2025 AWW Annual Reporting coming in February 2026!

Water Chemistry Monitoring Workshop participants in Livingston, AL, April 2025. Photo credit: Carolina Ruiz
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Recap: AWW @ Destination STEM Event on Auburn’s Campus

By: Sydney Zinner 

AWW was invited to participate amongst 60+ other exhibitors from around Alabama in the Auburn University’s College of Sciences and Mathematics’ 2025 Destination STEM Expo!

“Destination STEM Expo is an interactive experience where sixth through ninth grade students explore Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Students enjoy the freedom to see, touch, hear, and smell the many wonders of science!” 

Students explore macroinvertebrates at AWW’s exhibit. Photo credit: AU iSTEM Connectory
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For Volunteer Monitors: What are these new “Data Snapshot” Emails?

By: Amy Zvonar

If you are a Volunteer Monitor, you may have recently received an email from AWW summarizing your data monitoring efforts from June 01, 2025 until August 31, 2025. If you monitored during this period and submitted your data, you received a “Thank You for Submitting Data” email. If you are a certified monitor but did not monitor during this period, you may have received a “We Miss You” email!  Both emails are part of a new initiative by our staff to provide all certified AWW monitors with up-to-date information about their monitoring efforts! 

With anything new, there is always a lot to learn. If you received an email, we hope you learned that we care about the data you submit. Committing to regular monitoring and submitting your data monthly requires time and effort and we greatly value your dedication.   We hope you also learned that we value you. If you have not been able to submit data for any reason, these quarterly emails are one tool our small staff is using to reach out and offer our assistance.

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Volunteer Highlight: Molly Miller

By: Amy Zvonar

AWW volunteer monitors and trainers are the backbone of our organization. Their dedication to supporting AWW’s mission is apparent every time they submit data or organize and lead a certification training. It is because of their hard work that we have active monitors in 41 of the 67 counties in Alabama!

As a bonus, all our volunteer monitors and trainers are fascinating individuals who are doing incredible things for their communities all over Alabama. We recently had the pleasure of learning more about volunteer monitor and trainer, Molly Miller, who is an Assistant Professor with the Stokes School of Marine & Environmental Sciences at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.  She monitors sites in the Mobile area with the University of South Alabama and gets her college students involved in the monitoring process.

Photo credit: Molly holds hydrilla at a small lake in Baldwin County. She sample the lake as part of her PhD research.

Read on to find out more about what brought Molly to AWW and why she thinks water quality monitoring is important. Plus, you won’t want to miss finding out what her favorite aquatic organisms are!   

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Celebrating Orange Beach with AWW Staff

Watershed stewardship is not all in the “big” wins and success stories. Stewardship can be practiced daily through appreciation and the simple act of noticing and sharing what is around you. 

Celebrating Water is an effort to encourage us to share the wonders that water brings to us through photos, poems, art, writing, or however you like to share the waters you cherish. If you have a Celebrating Water moment to share, email us at awwprog@auburn.edu!

AWW Staff had the opportunity to enjoy some beach time while helping facilitate the Alabama Water Resources Conference in Orange Beach, AL.

Enjoy photos of Orange Beach from AWW Staff!

Photo credit: Carolina Ruiz
Photo credit: Carolina Ruiz
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AWW @ Family STEM Career Connect Day

Alabama Water Watch was excited to participate in the Family STEM Career Connect Day at the Opelika Public Library, hosted by Quanthub and the East Alabama STEM Ecosystem! The fair brought together STEM-focused organizations from Auburn University and across Alabama, offering families a chance to discover exciting careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Photo credit: Amy Zvonar
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