NEW JERSEY WATERSHED AMBASSADORS PROGRAM
Watershed Management Area 8
North and South Branch Raritan

My name is Lauren Theis and I am the AmeriCorps New Jersey Watershed Ambassador for 2007-2008. As the Ambassador for Watershed Management Area 8, I spend my time at the Upper Raritan Watershed Association in Pottersville, New Jersey, as well as at the South Branch Watershed Association in Flemington, New Jersey. This watershed management area includes the North and South Branch of the Raritan, which encompass the Round Valley and Spruce Run reservoirs. I grew up on the banks of Budd Lake, New Jersey's largest natural lake, and so the protection of such water bodies is very important to me. Over the next ten months, I will be working to educate the community about our watersheds and how we can help protect the beauty and health of these delicate and important parts of our environment.

I attended Cook College at Rutgers University, founded in 1864 as New Jersey's land-grant college. I received a Bachelor's of Science degree in the Biological Sciences, with a strong focus in ecology and evolution. I hope to use the perspectives on the environment that Cook College helped me develop to teach others about the importance of our Earth and how we can help protect it.

Part of my job, as a Watershed Ambassador, is to help educate the local community about watersheds and ways we can change our behavior to take care of them. I'd love to make a presentation and/or run a training session at your fair, local school or community group regarding watersheds and watershed management procedures. I can gear the presentation to kids and adults of all ages and adapt to any certain topic you'd like covered!

Everybody lives in a watershed, but not everybody knows what one is! I would like to teach our community about how our everyday activities on land can truly affect both the health and quality of our water. The presentations are fun, informative and interesting, and demonstrate what individuals in our community can do to help prevent damage done to our watershed and hopefully reverse what negative effects we are already seeing. The training sessions also teach citizens how we can easily observe various aspects of the habitat in and surrounding a water body to assess its health. The NJDEP needs us as their eyes, ears and hands to gather this information so we can efficiently act on areas that need our help!

I am a free resource to the New Jersey community and look forward to teaching your group the importance of watershed management! Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions and concerns or to schedule a presentation for your group. I look forward to working with you and sharing my knowledge in a fun filled way so that together we can help to preserve our most precious resource!

Lauren Theis
LTheis@urwa.org
(908) 234-1852 ext. 17

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