Have a Dip-In Event to Educate the Public

We encourage you to make the Dip-In part of a media event for your monitoring program.

If your monitoring program involves lakes, why not use the North American Lake Management Society's Lakes Appreciation Week campaign sponsored by the North American Lake Management Society as a focal point for your Dip-In.

Another possibility is to have the Dip-In in association with a Lake Day or other established event on your site. Everyone benefits if there is attention drawn to your efforts to monitor the environment. It is a chance for you to educate the public and your elected officials about the problems and promises of our environment.

Dip-In Events

Follow the links to see examples of Dip-In related events.

Cuyahoga River Dip-In, Kent, Ohio: For the past two years we have dipped our disks into the famous Cuyahoga River at the City of Kent�s Heritage Festival. Ohio Congressman Tom Sawyer, Kent State�s President, Carol Cartwright, and local dignitaries measured the transparency of the Cuyahoga.

Vermont's Governor�s Lake Dip-In: Vermont conducted a Governor�s Lake Dip-In on Lake Bomoseen. Governor Dean participated in measuring transparency and presented the Robert Arnold Lake Protection Award to honor an individual for their outstanding lake and watershed protection work. He also named the local student winners of the Governor�s Lake Dip-In essay contest.

In 1996, Jerry Pitt, then with the U.S. EPA, was working with an Kansas City urban youth program. When he found out about the Dip-In, he got a local paint manufacturer to donate paint can lids. He had the kids paint black and white quadrants on the lids and then take their disks out to a lake for their first experience in volunteer monitoring.

Andrew McLeod, director of the Rhode Island�s Department of Environmental Management, joined volunteers in taking samples in Johnson's Pond for the Dip-In. Susan Baxter, a student at the University of Rhode Island, taught McLeod, who had never done water sampling before, how to use a "Secchi disk test."

The Massachusetts Water Watch Partnership (http://www.umass.edu/tei/mwwp/dipin.html) didn�t have an event, but put the results of the Dip-In in Massachusetts on their web site to highlight the variation in transparency found by their volunteers.

Governor's Proclamations

Below are some programs that used the Dip-In and/or the Lakes Appreciation Week in 1998 in Governor's Proclamations.

Oklahoma

Wisconsin

How to Attract Media Coverage:

If you would like to have the media cover your event, please see our page dealing with media coverage.

Press Release:

Please feel free to use our Press Release for the Dip-In.

Need other information?

Please e-mail us at rcarlson@kent.edu

Updated: June 10, 2009