2025 Resource Seminar & Celebration on 4/5/25
Come one, come all! Everyone is welcome at the Bucket Ruckus Seminar & Celebration (2041 Madison Street in Stevens Point). This is our third annual event, and we are so stoked! At this event you will find educational sessions, screen printing, games, art activities, microscopes, and more. Come meet new friends and learn some stuff!
This year we will have some activities running simultaneously during the seminar. With warm enough weather, we’ll be able to host some of these things outside as well. Feel free to come and camp out for the whole day of fun, or come and go as you please! A microphone will be in use during the seminar, but we may still have to limit noisy activities to outdoors until sessions conclude at 1:15PM. If you come mainly for the seminar, we hope that you will stay to hang, print a t shirt, meet a new friend, eat some dumpster snacks (wait, what?!), look at stuff under a microscope, make some garbage art, and more!! This event runs until 3PM.
Seminar schedule : 9AM-1:15PM
9-9:30AM : Coffee & tea social
9:30-10:15AM : Recycling in Portage County : Amanda Haffele, Director of the Portage County Solid Waste Department
10:30-11:15AM : Portage County Water Resources : Jen McNelly, Educator with UW - Extension
11:30AM-12:15PM : The Ethics and Safety of Harvesting Roadkill : Bill Koepke, mindful omnivore
12:30-1:15PM : What’s in my soil? : Bryant Scharenbroch, Associate Professor at UW - Stevens Point
Celebration schedule and activities : 9AM-3PM
During and after the seminar this year you can participate in fun activities centered on our resources and disposal habits. All stations and activities will be facilitated by volunteers. Here is some of what you can expect:
9AM - 3PM : Compost games and activities
How fast can you find all the pieces of garbage in the finished compost? Help us keep a clean stream of compost and get that stuff outta there! Do you know which bin a plastic berry container goes into?…recycle, or landfill? Play some simple games that help to reinforce important aspects of one of the most often overlooked parts of our lives: throwing things “away.”
9AM - 3PM : Explore teeny tiny life with microscopes!
Did you know that microorganisms are critical to life? They exist in our soils, they help treat our wastewater, they live in our food…they are all around us! While our microscopes may not be powerful enough to see all the different kinds of soil and water microorganisms that exist, they can still illuminate a huge and fascinating part of biology. Come explore microscopic life that drives our ecosystems!
11AM - 3PM : Garbage Art with Bri Kiefer of Dancy Art Camp
Sustainable art-making is where it's at! This activity invites us to consider materials that often end up in landfills, as we turn our everyday TRASH into ART. Join Bri, of Dancy Art Camp, for fun and creativity, infused with environmental awareness! Some items supplied, but please bring your own trash materials. We will give new life to things like dried up markers, shoelaces, CDs, scrap fabric, twist ties and rubber bands, washed plastic silverware, egg cartons, newspapers and magazines, paper towel tubes, and more…what else can you think of?!
12:30 - 1:15PM : What’s in my Soil?
Bryant Scharenbroch, delivering the last talk of our 2025 seminar, invites you to bring your own soil sample in for assessment. Collect 1-2 quarts in a bag or bucket and bring it with you to this presentation.
1 - 3PM: Screen printing
Bring your own t shirt, or $5 to use one that we thrifted for you.* Keep in mind that we will print with black ink only. You can also print on tea towels, tote bags, etc. Items for printing should be mostly or entirely made of cotton for the best quality print. This station will be supervised and if you’re not comfortable printing your own t shirt, someone can do it for you!
*While we try to have a variety of styles, sizes, and colors, we are limited to what has been available at local thrift stores so we hope that you find something that works for you!
