LIGHTNING ROUND PRESENTER CO-AUTHORS: Keir Wefferling, Sarah Baughman (UW-Green Bay); Brandon Corder, Holly Johnson (UW-Madison) TITLE: Students and water in Wisconsin’s peatland plant communities: A project funded by UW's Freshwater Collaborative ABSTRACT: Peatlands are a special type of wetland that store large amounts of carbon and thus provide resilience to the effects of climate change. We believe Wisconsin’s peatlands have been underappreciated and understudied and we are hoping to change that. Our mission is two-fold: 1) provide educational materials to students and the public to create a general appreciation for peatlands and an understanding of their extreme importance, and 2) train the next generation of peatland scientists to fill gaps in our knowledge about Wisconsin’s peatlands and find pathways for their restoration and conservation. We are working with students who are using art as well as science to create Trailside Guides and a Peatland Primer. The Trailside Guides will be available at select sites with boardwalks to be used by visitors to explore the peatland and learn about the plants, animals, and other biota that live there. The Peatland Primer will be used by undergraduate course instructors to introduce students to peatlands—what they are, why they’re important, and the threats they face. We are also involving students in research by training them to collect water quality data and to perform floristic quality assessments in peatlands based on vascular and non-vascular flora. These data will be used to investigate whether floristics and water quality are correlated. Our efforts are currently focused on Door County due to the nutrient-rich groundwater associated with the calcareous bedrock, diverse bryophyte flora, site accessibility, and strong community partnerships, but we plan to expand to other sites in Northern Wisconsin in the future and are looking for additional partners with peatlands for which we can develop Trailside Guides or do surveys. BIO: Mary Ann Feist has been the research curator of the Wisconsin State Herbarium at UW - Madison since 2013. Before this, she worked as a Wetland Botanist at the Illinois Natural History Survey for 15 years. Her research is now focused on peatlands and peat mosses, and she has conducted numerous floristic surveys in Northern Wisconsin. She is currently a co-PI on a grant, Students and Water in Wisconsin’s Peatland Plant Communities.