NARS Workshops

Aquatic Resource Monitoring Technical Training Workshops for States, Tribes and Other Stakeholders
An agreement between EPA and CTIC to provide leadership and technical support to successfully plan, organize, coordinate, evaluate and share information from State and Tribal Aquatic Resource Monitoring Technical Training Workshops that will occur between 2016 to 2020.
 
Nationals:
National 2016:
Tampa, FL- May 2-6, 2016
The NARS National Workshop was held in Tampa, Florida May 2-6, 2016. CTIC worked with EPA to develop breakout sessions to cover NARS materials.
CTIC awarded 45 travel scholarships for state and tribal participants to attend. A total of 52 people attended the conference.
A conference summary and a summary of evaluations are available below.
 
National 2017:
Silver Springs, MD- December 5-7, 2017
The NARS National workshop was held in Silver Springs, Maryland December 5-7, 2017.  CTIC worked with EPA and an Advisory Committee consisting of ~ 12 people to develop meeting objectives and agenda. This committee met monthly throughout the planning phase to ensure NARS practices were represented throughout the national workshop.
110 people attended the workshop- CTIC awarded 50 travel scholarships to state and tribal participants. 
A workshop agenda and summary are avaliable below.
Agenda
Summary
 
National 2019:
Denver, CO- March 25 – 29, 2019
The NARS National workshop (co-located with NWQMC) was held in Denver, Colorado March 25-29, 2019.  CTIC worked with EPA and an Advisory Committee consisting of ~ 18 people to develop meeting objectives and agenda. This committee met monthly throughout the planning phase.
CTIC awarded 58 travel scholarships for state & tribal participants to attend. An additional 40 people, (consisting of EPA, trainers, etc.) attended the meetings, bringing the total attendance to 98.
Results from evaluations, summary of notes and recording of the conference are available below.

Notes

 

Regional Workshops:

NCCA Great Lakes Benthic Indicator Development Workshop
Chicago, IL- October 18-20, 2016
The workshop was held in Chicago, Illinois with Hugh Sullivan from EPA acting as the workshop lead with other speakers brought in to educate participants. The purpose of the workshop was to develop and validate indicator of benthic condition for use by National Coastal Condition Assessment (NCCA), States and others interested in assessing the condition of Great Lakes coastal and nearshore habitats.  
CTIC awarded 9 travel scholarships for state and tribal participants to attend. A total of 20 people attended the workshop.
 
R10 Wetlands Workshop
Corvallis, OR- October 1-5, 2018
The workshop was held at the Courtyard Marriot in Corvallis, OR. John Vansickle was the Technical Speaker for the event. Other experts were brought in on Wednesday to provide additional “one-on-one” assistance/training for the attendees
CTIC awarded 15 travel scholarships for state & tribal participants to attend. An additional 17 people, (consisting of mostly EPA) attended the week long meetings, bringing the total attendance to 32.
 
National Aquatic Resource Survey Training Improvement Workshop 
Dallas, TX- December 5-6, 2018
The workshop was to be held at the Region 6 EPA Office in Dallas TX. Due to the government declaring a day of mourning in observation of the passing of past President George Bush Sr., it was quickly moved to Wednesday’s meeting, refreshments and meals to a nearby hotel. No EPA folks were allowed to attend on that day either. Thursday’s meeting was held back at the region 6 office as originally planned.
CTIC awarded 9 (one participant canceled last minute) travel scholarships for state & tribal participants to attend. An additional 10 people, (consisting of mostly EPA) attended the meetings, bringing the total attendance to 18.
There was a follow-up webinar to present a summary of what was learned at the workshop on March 5, 2019. The panelists were Amina Pollard, Sarah Lehmann and Siobhan Gorham – there were 104 participants on this webinar 
 
Region 7 Wetlands Tribal Training Workshop
Topeka, KS- September 10-13, 2019
A pre-training webinar, scheduled and hosted by CTIC was held on August 28, 2019. Gregg Serenbetz with EPA was the main presenter.
The workshop was a mix of classroom and in-field training. The classroom portion was held at the Hyatt in Topeka, KS – Field training was conducted at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. Frank Norman, Norman Ecological Consulting (vegetation) and Lenore Vasilas, NRCS (soils) were the trainers for the field portion of the workshop.
Video footage of the training was recorded and produced by CTIC to be edited into NARS wetland training videos for future use.
CTIC awarded 11 travel scholarships for state & tribal participants to attend.  An additional 11 people, (consisting of EPA, trainers and CTIC staff) attended the week long meetings, bringing the total attendance to 22.
Workshop agenda and evaluation results summary attached
Evaluations Summary- Field Site Training
Evaluations Summary- Classroom Training
 
National Aquatic Resource Survey Training Improvement 2 Workshop 
Dallas, TX- October 29-30, 2019
Pre-training collaborative documents were done by workshop attendees to discuss various workshop topics.
Workshop was held in Dallas, TX on October 29-30, 2019. Amina Pollard and Richard Mitchell facilitated discussions based on lessons learned, training tiers and a recap from last year’s workshop.
CTIC awarded 6 travel scholarships for state & tribal participants to attend. An additional 10 people, (consisting of mostly EPA) attended the workshop, bringing the total to 16.
A workshop agenda and participant collaborative documents are below: