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GWC students monitoring Geneva Lake temperatures

WILLIAMS BAY — George Williams College of Aurora University's graduate students will research Geneva Lake water temperatures during a lake monitoring buoy project from April 20 to May 4.

The research initiative will help develop a prototype for an affordable, reliable and accurate means of automatically logging water temperatures at various depths. GWC students enrolled in the philosophy and methods of outdoor education course will be involved with the construction, testing, deployment and recovery of the buoy.

The Geneva Lake Environmental Agency facilitated the process of gaining approval from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to deploy the buoy. Yerkes Observatory will provide engineering support to assist with the selection and programming of data logging circuitry.

Christopher Wells, Assistant Professor of Parks and Recreation, said the system will be in Geneva Lake for a two-week period in about 20 feet of water.

“My students will help with the construction and deployment of the buoy and they will help with analyzing the temperature data we collect,” he said. “If all goes well, we will make any necessary improvements on the design and eventually deploy a more permanent buoy.”

The project will culminate with a Lake Study Day on May 4 involving 140 fourth-grade students from Morgan Elementary School in Beloit and 65 sixth-grade students from Williams Bay Elementary School. The student will have the opportunity to see the buoy instrumentation and explore lake features through an underwater robotic camera.