The Wisconsin Master Naturalist program is a network of well-informed volunteers dedicated to conservation education and service within Wisconsin communities. Master Naturalists learn from experts out in the field and inside the classroom and gain knowledge and resources to address environmental challenges facing the state. Training opportunities are located at host organizations across the state, such as state parks, college campuses, environmental education centers and museums. Master Naturalists perform volunteer service through stewardship, education and citizen science projects that are directed by host and partner organizations.

Visit wimasternaturalist.org to learn more.

The Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey’s (WGNHS) recently published a new 1:500,000-scale statewide map of the Quaternary Geology of Wisconsin. This map was fifty years in the making. It updates and improves a map originally published in 1976. Led by Elmo Rawling and Eric Carson, map authors integrated modern data from laser-based elevation surveys, new county-scale geologic maps, and well drilling records to create a comprehensive and more accurate set of sedimentary units and landforms across the state.  Full article - scroll down to "Highlights from the last year".

Call it a fish story, but author Rebecca Hogue Wojahn’s latest book is absolutely true. “Saving our Sturgeon: Protecting Wisconsin’s Ancient Fish,” tells the story of how conservation efforts rescued lake sturgeon from extinction in Wisconsin. With kid-friendly illustrations, photos, and maps, the book explains how factors like overfishing and dam building threatened sturgeon survival and how people banded together to save — and continue to support — the iconic big fish.  Find out more...

The Great Lakes ore freighter, Edmund Fitzgerald, sank in a storm on Lake Michigan on Nov. 10, 1975. On the 50th anniversary, UW’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies took a fresh look at the storm using modern techniques. The storm swamped the ship with gale-force winds and 25-foot waves. CIMSS scientists note that advances in weather forecasting, including many pioneered at CIMSS, have helped foster a new era of safe transportation across the Great Lakes. What is a November gale?  CIMSS Satellite Blog Imagery and Explanation of 1975 Storm.

If youth are interested in participating in the Door County Quality Market Animal Sale during the 2026 Door County Fair, there are specific rules and requirements that need to be met.  Be sure to follow the Door County Quality Market Animal Sale website and Facebook page for information on the rules and requirements to participate in the Quality Market Animal Sale.  

Exhibitors MUST attend one of the mandatory Group A: Orientation and Rules meetings held at the Sandbox in Sturgeon Bay:  December 22, 2025 at 6:30 p.m.  or  December 30, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. 

Check out the Wisconsin 4-H website for a full list of Statewide experiences and events.

As you look through and consider these experiences, please know that there are funds that may be available through the Door County 4-H Adult Leaders Association to help support these opportunities.  Talk to your Club Leader or Candis Dart for more information!

Wisconsin 4-H Space Camp is an educational experience where youth from across the state take a bus down to Huntsville, Alabama, for a 4 day journey. Youth get the opportunity to venture away from home to meet new friends, develop leadership and teamwork skills, and learn all about space.

Applications close December 15, 2025

Meet 4-H members from throughout Wisconsin and explore your unique Sparks through exciting statewide opportunities. Apply to join one of the Wisconsin 4-H Ambassador Teams for Arts, Ag, and Leadership. The ambassadors' teams will advocate for Wisconsin 4-H and engage in opportunities to build personal leadership skills and encourage others to grow their leadership potential.

Applications close December 15, 2025

Check out our website for the latest 4-H newsletter, events and opportunities.  

Jan 23     Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association Winter Institute, Marshfield, WI.

Jan 27     2026 Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum, Madison, WI

Mar 6       Valuably Informed Thriving Agriculture Leader (VITAL), Manitowoc, WI

A workshop series for farms interested in planning the transition to the next generation.  This virtual series will help you gather information and answer questions regarding finances, estate planning, wills, trusts and business entities.  Workshops held in February 2026.  Information and Registration

This video covers trends in manure application, transportation risks, dragline safety, spill containment procedures, and regulatory requirements. Learn how to prevent accidents, respond effectively to spills, and protect water quality while managing large volumes of manure. Kevin also shares insights from statewide data on manure-related incidents and offers practical recommendations for farmers and applicators.  Watch it now!

Dr. Nesli Akdeniz is an assistant professor and extension specialist in Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In this presentation, Dr. Akdeniz introduces a new online calculator designed to support ventilation decisions in dairy barns. The presentation concludes with a comparison of weather data from 2000–2004 and 2020–2024, highlighting how ventilation needs have changed over the past two decades in northern/central and southern Wisconsin. Video

We are launching a new survey to gather the costs of raising Dairy Replacements in Wisconsin.  Please sign up and have the survey sent to you.  

Leadership Wisconsin is pleased to introduce its new advanced statewide leadership development program designed to catapult motivated, high-potential leaders from across the state into solution-based collaboration that will have significant impact on issues that matter.  Runs February - October 2026.  Find out more.

A short-track program is a new offering of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine, known as WARM, which has been successfully addressing the physician shortage in rural areas since 2007. As of this May, WARM will have graduated 327 students. In the past, roughly three-quarters of the graduates have returned to Wisconsin post-residency, with 42% practicing in rural areas.  Meet Shane Hoffman and read about his journey.

Door County recognizes the important and positive role the people working in our service industry play in our economy, culture, and community.  Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey to help UW-Madison Extension and its community partners better understand you, your successes and your challenges. Your answers will provide the data needed to enact needed policy, systems, and environmental change and improve overall quality of life.  Thank You!   Survey

Watch a Badger Crop Connect Webinar you may have missed....on-demand at Badger Crop Connect 2025 - YouTube
Topics range from soil, manure, weeds, insects, even nitrogen fixing corn research progress at UW. Most are less then 20 minutes in length.

Once the most common beverage in the United States, cider declined in popularity beginning in the late 1800s, with the migration of people to the city, the increased consumption of beer, and the Temperance movement in the early 20th century. Today, cider is experiencing a resurgence and is one of the fastest growing segments of the alcohol industry. Much of the cider production is concentrated in New England and West Coast states, but the Midwest represents a significant portion of the market, with Michigan leading the way.  Full Article

All hay prices quoted are dollars per ton FOB point of origin for alfalfa hay unless otherwise
noted. The information presented in this report is compiled from public and private quality tested
sales and reports in the Midwest.  Market Report 

If you have never attended the WWASH conference this is the year to go! Held in Wisconsin Dells December 16-17, 2025. WWASH Conference – Crops and Soils.  Engaging breakout sessions, roundtable discussions and keynote speakers and panels.

Pharmacy professor Weiping Tang is partnering with colleagues across campus on a two-year project to identify therapeutic peptides to induce the degradation of protein aggregates. If successful, their work could pave the way for new treatments to slow or halt the progression of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases.   Full Article

Need help with home safety or food preservation? UW-Madison Extension has partnered with
Iowa State University Extension and Outreach’s AnswerLine to give Wisconsin residents access
to trained Extension professionals who provide research-based, trustworthy guidance on safe
canning, freezing, drying, and other household questions. Call 1-866-540-4636, Monday
through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. or email:  answer@iastate.edu
Learn more: go.wisc.edu/AnswerLine

A map of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Wisconsin shows that the disease burden is the highest in rural counties in northwestern, central, and southwestern parts of the state.

Unfortunately, COPD patients in these areas often live far from health systems that offer specialty care for chronic lung diseases. Sara Hernandez, Health Services Research in Pharmacy graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy, has been studying the ways that pharmacists may be able to improve care in rural Wisconsin communities that may lack respiratory therapists and pulmonologists.  Full Article

Haskap (Lonicera caerulea), also known as honeyberries, are a delicious and nutritious early-season honeysuckle fruit that survives Siberian cold and can sell for up to $9 per pound. They have no thorns and few significant pests other than powdery mildew and hungry birds—the cedar waxwings are downright fiendish.  Learn more...

Poinsettias and holiday cacti are the primary indoor plants of the holiday season, providing cheerful seasonal color. When cared for properly, holiday cacti can be long-lived and provide a greater display of flowers in each successive year. However, too many of these plants languish and die due to improper care. This article contains information and guidance designed to help keep holiday cactus alive and thriving, providing its floral spectacle year after year.  Full Article

Learn about ten fascinating plant diseases with such distinctive signs and symptoms that you can identify them by eye.  This presentation will cover the biology of the organisms that cause these diseases and tidbits of disease control information as well.

December 17, 2025 - 6:30-8:30 pm.  Registration

‘Tis the season for holiday cheer, including live Christmas trees. Christmas trees offer consumers a chance to bring nature indoors for a few weeks each December. Whether you choose a pre-cut tree available at a local tree lot or cut your own tree from a farm, you will have several tree species to choose from. Find the best one!

Parents Forever is an educational class for parents and caregivers in the process of divorce, already divorced, or never married but separating. In this class, you will learn how family transitions affect children and how children experience family conflict. You will learn how to care for yourself during your family transition and how to prevent and reduce conflict.

This class may or may not meet the requirement for court mandated co-parenting classes for divorcing parents. Please confirm with your county before registering for this class for that purpose. 

For times and dates please check our events calendar.

Losing your job can have a big impact on your life. Beyond the financial challenges that job loss can have on a person and their household, there are also wellbeing challenges. According to the American Psychological Association, research on unemployment shows that losing a job can impact a person’s mental and physical health. This article covers some steps you can take to help manage the challenges that come with job loss.   Read more...

Planning AHEAD is a 7-session course (one hour each) that guides participants through:  getting started, handling financial changes, advance medical and legal directives, estate planning, choices in end-of-life care, final wishes and understanding grief.  Zoom presentation:  Wednesdays, January 7 through February 18, 2026, at 1:00 pm CT.  Free.  Register Here

The holidays are a time to be thankful, celebrate with loved ones, and look forward to a new year!  However, they can also be a time of great mental, emotional and financial anxiety.  Please join us as we explore ways, we can get through the holidays together!  WeCOPE is a 7-week class that empowers adults with effective, evidence-based strategies to manage stress, build resilience, and enhance their overall well-being.  Zoom presentation:  Mondays, December 15 through January 26, 2026, at 1:00 pm CT. Free. Register Here

According to the FTC, in 2025, Wisconsin's older adults have already lost over $15 million dollars due to fraud. Staying alert, informed, and one step ahead is how you can avoid falling victim to a scam. Sharing this information with friends, family, and colleagues, especially those who may be more vulnerable, helps create a safer community for everyone. 

Learn about these scams and more at these upcoming, in-person presentations (Zoom link is available).  Presentations will take place at the ADRC of Door County, 914 N. 14th Ave, Sturgeon Bay. 

Avoid Scams this Holiday Season! Tuesday, December 9th or December 16th, 12:30pm-2pm.

Register

Learn About Common Scams, Tuesday, January 6th, 12:30pm-2pm.

Identity Theft, Tuesday, January 13th, 12:30-2pm.  

Safe Online Shopping, Tuesday, January 20th, 12:30-2pm.

Keeping your Grandchildren Safe, Tuesday, January 27th, 12:30-2pm.

Register

If you dream of reading the original screenplay that kicked off the “Jurassic Park” film franchise — leading to this summer’s blockbuster “Jurassic World Rebirth” 32 years later — look no further than Box 1, Folder 15, of the David Koepp Papers.

That precious bit of movie history is safeguarded by UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR). Koepp, a Wisconsin native who attended UW in the early ’80s, entrusted it to the center along with many of his other early drafts and final scripts, including “Mission: Impossible” (1996), “Panic Room” (2002), and “War of the Worlds” (2005), to name a few. Full Article

The University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension provides equal opportunities in employment and programming in compliance with state and federal law.