Monday 7/20/26: Prepare for the August primary, ABCD, summer metalworking camp

Lauri Jones: Support for WUWM podcasts comes from University School of Milwaukee, fulfilling a values-based mission of developing learners, fostering leaders, and preparing citizens for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. More information at usm.org/mission.

Joy Powers: From 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR, this is Lake Effect. I'm Joy Powers. Today we'll share everything you need to know ahead of Wisconsin's partisan primary next month.

Meagan Wolfe: Been any major changes at the state or the federal level that impact Wisconsin voters and how they're going to participate.

Joy Powers: Then we'll learn about ABCD, After Breast Cancer Diagnosis, and how it helps people with breast cancer.

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: Research shows that the kind of support that ABCD provides, peer-to-peer emotional support, can make a profound difference on outcomes, on medical outcomes.

Joy Powers: Plus, we'll take you to a Wisconsin summer camp for high school students learning skilled trades. All of that is coming up on Lake Effect. This is Lake Effect from 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR. I'm Joy Powers, and thank you so much for joining us. Wisconsin's partisan primary election is coming up on August 11th. Voters will select candidates for governor, U.S. Congress, the state legislature, and more. In a speech last week, the president made baseless claims that the country's voting system is not secure. But no changes have been made to how you can cast your ballot in Wisconsin. And election officials here say your vote is secure and will be counted. Meagan Wolfe is Wisconsin's top election official. She joins WUWM Eric Von Fellow Akira Quinn to share everything voters need to know ahead of the primary election.

Akira Quinn: Is there anything different about the upcoming election that voters should know about?

Meagan Wolfe: The process for voting in Wisconsin for the August 11th partisan primary is the same as the process you've used to vote in elections previously in Wisconsin. So there have not been any major changes at the state or the federal level that impact Wisconsin voters and how they're going to participate. But I will say a partisan primary election is different than a general election in terms of what your ballot's going to look like. So in a partisan primary, like we have in August, you're selecting what candidates you want to move on to the general election in November. And so for voters, when you receive your ballot, you're gonna have primaries for different political parties. And the important thing to know for the August primary is you can only vote within one party's primary. If you were to vote in primaries in multiple parties, then your votes would not count. It would be what's called an overvote.

Akira Quinn: There have been several actions at the federal level, including the FBI investigating election officials in Milwaukee, proposals requiring states to share voter information for mail ballots and the Department of Justice warning states they could face criminal charges if non-citizens are allowed to vote. How are these actions affecting elections in Wisconsin?

Meagan Wolfe: So again, there have been no laws that have been passed or executive orders that haven't been challenged through the legal process. So there are no changes to how Wisconsin voters will interact with the election process. When we receive correspondence from the federal government, we are very transparent about that and we post it on our website, elections.wi.gov. And in all instances when we have had these contacts from the federal level, the commission, so our six-member bipartisan commission, has issued some type of response, which is also available on our website. And with the most recent communication from the DOJ, we were pleased to be able to report back to them and to the public that Wisconsin already takes it extremely seriously and has laws to ensure that only lawful, eligible voters are on our voter list. And so that's what's reflected in the correspondence that was sent by our commission.

Akira Quinn: The WUWM has been receiving questions from our audience through election surveys. One of those questions concerns absentee voting. Are there any changes with the mail-in voting?

Meagan Wolfe: So, there are changes to mail-in voting, but there are some really important things that voters who choose to utilize by-mail voting should keep in mind. And the most important one is you have to have your ballot back by 8 p.m. on election day. In some other states, if you postmark your ballot by election day and it gets back in the days after, it can still be counted. That is not the case in Wisconsin. So, if you are returning your ballot by mail, the guidance is to get that ballot in the mail back to your clerk at least 10 days before the election or primary, sooner if you can. And voters should also consider, if they're able to, other options to return their ballot. So you can go to myvote.wi.gov and there you can find information about your municipal clerk. So if you live in a city, your city clerk that administers elections. If you live in a town, your town clerk. And you'll be able to contact them to find out if you have drop boxes for ballots in your community, if you're able to and where you're able to return your ballot in person to your clerk. And so these are all options that voters should consider, especially as we get closer to the election. And so voters just really need to be sure that if they're choosing mail as their method to return their ballot, that they're doing so as early as possible. Or considering other ways to get their ballot back to their clerk by 8 p.m. on election day.

Akira Quinn: And for people who might not know what type of documentation should you bring to go vote or just like mail-in ballots as well?

Meagan Wolfe: That's a great question. So for Wisconsin voters, there's two steps to the process. The first is registering to vote, and you can register to vote by mail and online at myvote.wi.gov if you're more than 20 days out from an election or a primary. And in those instances, you're going to either match your data with the DMV or you're going to provide a document that proves your residence. So if you're registering to vote by mail or in person during in-person absentee or at the polls on election day, you are going to need what's called a proof of residence document. So this is something that shows your address, where you currently live, so that the clerk can ensure that you get the right ballot with all of the contests and candidates that you're eligible to vote for. And so this proof of residence document for registering can be something like a utility bill, a bank statement, and it could even be your Wisconsin ID card or driver's license if that has your current and valid address on it. So that's registration. Then there's photo ID. And photo ID is what you need to show to prove you are who you say you are. So if you're requesting an absentee ballot, when you make that request, you have to provide a copy of your photo ID the first time you make an absently ballot request. And if you go to myvote.wi.gov, it'll walk you through that process. You'll be able to take a picture of your ID and submit all that to the clerk. If you're voting in person, either during in-person absentee or at the polls on election day, then you're going to show your photo ID to your poll worker, and they'll take a look at that for compliance to make sure the name matches the name on the poll book, to make sure it's not expired or within the expiration deadlines, and then they're also going to make sure that the picture reasonably looks like the person that's in front of them. If all those things match, then the voter will be able to proceed to sign the poll book and they will be issued a ballot. But all those laws have been in place since about 2011 and there haven't been any changes to the process really since then. So if you voted before in the state of Wisconsin, the process is still going to be the same for August.

Akira Quinn: Perfect. And then what are you doing to assure that there isn't any type of voter intimidation or any other interference with people's right to vote?

Meagan Wolfe: Yeah, absolutely. Here in the state of Wisconsin, we have more local election officials in charge of administering elections than any other state. So every city, town, and village has their poll workers, their election officials that are administering the election. And a chief inspector is the person that's always in charge of each polling place. And these folks are all people that are trained to understand Wisconsin law, to work with their local law enforcement, to ensure the orderly conduct of election, to ensure that nobody's able to interfere with the process, and to ensure that the elections are secure and conducted with integrity. And so our poll workers, our election officials, and all of our communities are trained and even do scenario-based training to understand what interferences could look like and how they would manage that, plan for it, have contingency plans, to make sure that that is dealt with timely and that voters are able to exercise their right to vote.

Akira Quinn: And then how was the hiring process going with the training of the poll workers, and then what are you hearing from your local clerks?

Meagan Wolfe: So each of our 1,851 municipal clerks across the state are responsible for recruiting and training the poll workers in their communities. And what we're hearing is that, in the last few years, the political parties — so there's a part of our law that says that political parties can submit lists of poll workers, and the clerks have to first choose from those lists before they work with unaffiliated poll workers — that those lists are much bigger than they have been in the past. So in a lot of our communities that may not have seen those lists from the political parties in the past, they're seeing them this year. And so a lot our smaller communities especially do have enough poll workers and have a larger pool than maybe they have in the past. But there are other communities that just have more polling places and more voters. The city of Milwaukee for example, they're our largest city. They have more voters, and they have more polling places. And I know that they're always looking for assistance and for more poll workers who can help out with the process. So I always encourage people to get involved, to become a poll worker. Elections in Wisconsin are run by the people. They're run by us. They run by your neighbors, your friends, your family. And so get involved, and see if there are ways that you can help to administer elections in your community. So even communities that might already have enough poll workers, please reach out to your clerk and see if there's an opportunity for you to get involved.

Akira Quinn: And is there anything else voters should know ahead of the August and November elections?

Meagan Wolfe: Ahead of the August and November elections, I would encourage voters to make sure that they're registered to vote at their current address. And you can go to myvote.wi.gov to check the status of your voter registration. And also just think ahead about what method of voting you're going to use. Are you going to vote by mail absentee? Are you gonna vote in-person absentee in your clerk's office in the two weeks before an election, or you're going to vote on election day at the polling place? And just making sure you understand the process for that type of voting and ensure that your ballot is completed in accordance with law and that it's received on time so that your vote is counted. And if you have any questions at all, reach out to the Wisconsin Elections Commission or reach out your local election official. And myvote.wi.gov is the state of Wisconsin's official website for voters and voting information, and that's where you can go to check all your statuses, but also find information to contact your municipal clerk. So it's a great resource and a great place to start if you have any questions about the voting process.

Akira Quinn: Perfect, and that will be all my questions. And I want to thank you for taking the time to answer these for our listeners, and just for my own personal reasons as well, for people who just might not know this. So thank you.

Meagan Wolfe: Absolutely, yeah. Thanks for reaching out. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Joy Powers: Meagan Wolfe is the Wisconsin Elections Commission's Administrator. She spoke with WUWM Eric von Fellow Akira Quinn. You can find more information about how to vote and the candidates on your ballot at wuwm.com. In about 15 minutes, we'll tell you how Milwaukee County's Birth to Three program supports kids and their families in the early stages of life. But first, we'll learn about ABCD, After Breast Cancer Diagnosis, and how it helps people with breast cancer. That's coming up on Lake Effect, on 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR. You're listening to Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM. I'm Joy Powers. Breast cancer is never a welcome diagnosis. But for each person with the disease, there's a different set of circumstances that can make treatment difficult to navigate. Whether it's childcare concerns, getting time off work, or even re-imagining goals and ambitions, everyone with breast cancer has to forge their own path forward. But they don't have to do it alone. A local organization called ABCD, or After Breast Cancer Diagnosis, helps people with breast cancer connect with mentors. They're matched based on having similar life experiences and diagnoses to help support people with the disease. Ellen Friebert-Schupper is the executive director of ABCD. She joins me now to talk about it. Ellen, thank you so much for joining us.

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Joy Powers: Now, before you started working at ABCD, what was your experience with cancer, cancer diagnoses?

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: So my closest connection to cancer was when my father was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer in June of 2013. And unfortunately, he passed away only 10 weeks later. It was a very intense summer, a very hard summer. It was time in my life when I lived in the same city as my dad here in Milwaukee. I was working very full time. I had three young kids. I have a husband. I was also caring for my mom, as she was caring for dad. I was put in a position of being the primary communicator of everything that was going on with my dad's care. And it was a very emotionally charged experience for me.

Joy Powers: As your experience really illustrates, there's no time where a cancer diagnosis is welcome, but also often when a cancer diagnosed happens, there are a million other things that you're juggling in your life. As you started working with ABCD, what are some of the common issues that you would hear from people after they've gotten this kind of breast cancer diagnosis.

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: Feelings of loneliness, isolation, overwhelm, fear, depression are all common things that people share with our organization about how they are feeling after a diagnosis. They also feel guilt, they feel alone, they feel misunderstood, and they also feel almost a burden of, you know, they know that so many people around them are also scared and concerned and want to help, but they don't have the safe space to share the real feelings that they are having related to their diagnosis. I can relate to those feelings that I felt so intensely as a caregiving daughter. While I've never had breast cancer, so therefore I've never heard the words, "you have breast cancer," there's a connection and an understanding that I can have with the people that we're supporting. But in no way can I say that I understand what someone is feeling. And that's what the magic is of our organization, by having over 300 mentors across the country who are connected to people that reach out to us and can honestly, openly and authentically say, "I get it. I get what you're feeling." That's the power of ABCD. That's power of connections that we provide here at our organization.

Joy Powers: Yeah. Now tell us a bit about the mentorship program. How does it work?

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: So, people reach out to us either by filling out a form online or calling us or emailing us. People who have just been diagnosed with breast cancer or someone who is at high risk for developing the disease, someone who's living with stage four metastatic disease or someone who's caring for a loved one with breast caner, they reach out to us from across Milwaukee, across the state of Wisconsin. And because all of our services are virtual, we support people across the United States and even outside of the United States as well. We find out about their specific diagnosis, their specific treatment. You know, are they having a double mastectomy, a lumpectomy? Are they in the midst of deciding on if they want reconstruction? Are they having radiation, chemotherapy? We find out as much as they know about their treatment at the time that they call us, and we also find out who they are as a person. Are they a young mom? Have they just retired? Are they someone who is about to get married? Are they pregnant? All the elements of a person's life that are still part of who they are as they are dealing with a breast cancer diagnosis. We then take all that information, and we make a match with one of our mentors. All of our members are fully trained on how to provide emotional support. So a match is made between a mentor who is just like or has had a very similar experience to someone who needs support, and then the connection is made and our mentors reach out to the person who needs support. And they are able to have the real conversations. They're able to talk about the concerns or get advice or get answers to questions that only someone who's really been there and really had to face the same situations, make the same decisions, can truly understand.

Joy Powers: Yeah. My mom and my sister have both had breast cancer several times. My sister has had breast cancer now three times. The first time she was diagnosed, she was, I believe, 26 years old. She's worked both as a person who's done hotlines, but also received services, especially when she was first diagnosed. And one of her big complaints was that so many of these groups really focus on older people. She had a difficult time finding people who were more similar to her. What is it about, you know, really matching people up with people who can empathize with them on that level? What is that is so important for especially someone going through this kind of diagnosis?

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: Well, thank you so much Joy for sharing that story, because your sister really gets it. And I think that what you just shared makes it even more understandable about the importance of what it is that we do. Life stages matter and the challenges and realities of a 26-year-old woman like your sister are vastly different than a 62-year old woman. And when we layer on a breast cancer diagnosis that is a complicated and complex diagnosis at any age and stage in life, but it's different for a 26-year-old who may be in the process of dating or maybe is just married or with a breast cancer diagnosis will need to talk about and consider her fertility options, who may at the beginning of her career. Versus thinking about the 62 year old woman, it's just a different life stage that woman might be facing and considering how a breast cancer diagnosis is gonna impact her retirement plans, her ability to help her children who may be in the process of getting married. I mean, the life stage matters, as does the breast cancer diagnoses. And for us, it's not about who's next on the helpline. It's about finding the right person to have meaningful and important conversations that truly make a profound difference in someone's life. And I'll share that research shows that the kind of support that ABCD provides, peer-to-peer emotional support, can make a profound difference on outcomes, on medical outcomes. Yes, what we're doing is absolutely crucial to saving people's lives who are faced with a life-changing, life-altering diagnosis like breast cancer. You know, we often say that what we provide is empathy, not sympathy. And those two words mean different things. And it can often be said that people who have not had a similar experience or had breast cancer, there's unbelievable amounts of sympathy and support that someone can give to a loved one or a friend. But you don't get it unless you get it. You can't provide empathy unless you truly understand the experience of someone else.

Joy Powers: For sure. As you look toward the future of ABCD, what's your goal? What do you ultimately hope you can do with ABCD?

Ellen Friebert-Schupper: ABCD is experiencing an increase in demand of 47%. Now, that does not reflect an increase in the rates of breast cancer, and nor is it a 47% increase in the demand every day. But what it does show and represent is that the work that we have been doing here at ABCD to raise awareness about our services and the importance of our services is truly being heard, seen, and we are being found more than ever before. And my goals are to continue on this tremendous momentum that we've been creating and generating so that we can reach and support even more people that are impacted by breast cancer. I mean, there's millions of people who will be diagnosed with breast cancer every year. When we think back to our founding in 1999 by the legendary Milwaukee broadcast journalist, Melody Wilson Oldenburg, I mean her vision was that no one should face breast cancer alone. And she had goals and intentions of reaching as many people as possible. From 1999 to 2009, when unfortunately she died from metastatic disease, in the 10 years that she led ABCD, she was able to drive awareness about the organization throughout Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin at a time when it was very much a phone-based organization. It was before the internet, before email, before social media, for sure. But what we've been doing, especially in the last eight years — that's when I joined ABCD —what we have been able to do is harness technology and leverage the many opportunities to reach people in a virtual format so that we can reach and support even more people that need our services. I'm very proud of the fact of our growth and expansion, and especially as it ties back to the founding vision of Melody Wilson Oldenburg, that she really wanted to serve as many people as possible.

Joy Powers: Ellen Friebert-Schupper is the executive director of ABCD, after breast cancer diagnosis. Raising children comes with many challenges, and if people need extra support, the Milwaukee County Birth to 3 Program is a local resource. The Birth to 3 Program helps infants and toddlers address developmental delays and disabilities. In working with families and caretakers, the program can enhance a child's development with the help of educators, therapists, and service coordinators. To learn more about the program, Lake Effect's Audrey Nowakowski is joined by Samantha Cortez, the Birth to 3 program coordinator for Milwaukee County, and Crystal Vang, Milwaukee County's Birth to 3 liaison. Vang begins by explaining what makes the period of Birth to 3 so crucial for a child's development.

Crystal Vang: Every child learns and grows at their own pace, right? But there are milestones that every child should meet. And so parents and caregivers, they know their child best. And it's best when we can interact with them positively to impact the child and their development. And so research also suggests that the brain's development is the most adaptable in the first three years of life. And so early intervention services can change a child's developmental path. So we can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is for early diagnoses and intervention so that we can help the family in any way with this process.

Audrey Nowakowski: Okay, so let's say you're someone with a child who notices the maybe potential for some developmental delays, or are concerned in general and don't really know where to start, what are the next steps?

Crystal Vang: If they have a concern, typically they can make a referral. We do receive about three to 4,000 referrals a year. And so, you know, the impact that the Birth to 3 program has on Milwaukee County, it's large. And we have also great partnerships with, you know, local community hospitals and clinics and school districts, also with the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services, to name some of the few. So making a referral is the best way to do that. And by doing so, you can call the referral line. Do you know it, Samantha?

Samantha Cortez: 414-289-6799.

Crystal Vang: So then to call the refer line would be the best way. And then behind that phone call, there's a professional that is there to receive the call, so that they can answer the questions and concerns and direct them appropriately.

Audrey Nowakowski: Samantha, can you touch upon what evaluators look for when assessing a child and before kind of determining next steps and working with the family?

Samantha Cortez: Yes, so our motto in Birth to 3 is primary coach approach to teaming, and so that means that we really take the family's input. They know their child best, so we're really looking for that parent's knowledge on what is going on with their child. We look at the overall development of the whole child, and if there's a specific concern, then we look at that specific concern. The family has an option of evaluators from speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists that can look at that specific development with their specific tool and their expertise.

Audrey Nowakowski: There are a lot of factors that come into play when it comes to assessing and offering the correct services. And Milwaukee County is still in an unfortunate place where race plays a big factor in predicting health outcomes. And research indicates children of color are more likely to be misdiagnosed or diagnosed later in life. So how is the Birth to 3 program working to address this and trying to create an inclusive environment for children and their families to address them according to what works best for them?

Samantha Cortez: Yeah, so in the past two years, we've had the opportunity to receive grants that focus on different aspects. So one, focusing on that social and emotional development, so that mental health of that caregiver and that child, as well as our current grant is focusing on eliminating barriers, so having, being more access, raising more awareness to families that don't know about early intervention or might not know. About child development and what their child's milestones should be meeting. So that is our goal is trying to really eliminate those barriers, being more accessible to children and families of color, especially our Latinx and our Asian families. Our data really shows that we're not receiving those referrals as increasingly compared to white peers.

Audrey Nowakowski: I imagine this has a lot to do with outreach challenges. Can either one of you speak on that aspect of your work?

Samantha Cortez: So, you know, with the whole pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, we actually did our grant that we did for that social emotional development, our efforts, we had to change our efforts. We wanted to do more in-person outreach, going to the neighborhoods and communities, and with that pandemic we had a switch gears. So we did a lot of our outreach social media wise. We launched our Facebook page and we did more community cafes, so having more of those opportunities for families to just click on a team Zoom link to get to know the Birth to 3 program wherever they're at. At any time they can join us that way. So we trialed that out and it was really successful that we were able to get a lot of families interested in the virtual world and learning about the Birth To 3 program.

Audrey Nowakowski: In addition to these outreach challenges, I imagine that sometimes it's hard for parents to overcome their own conflicted feelings about asking for help or not knowing what's next for their child and even the stigma associated with that. So what would you like to share with caretakers to encourage them to take advantage of services like birth to three?

Samantha Cortez: I would say parents know their child the best, and it's okay to ask for help. And we are not here to judge families or to let parents know this is what your child should be doing. But we work individualized with that child and that family, and letting them know where they're at developmentally. Our program is voluntary, so we are now mandated to provide these services, but we are here to help. And any little questions, any little concern, wondering. Is my child supposed to be doing this? We're here to help answer those questions.

Audrey Nowakowski: Parenting is hard and can be isolating too. What kind of community or support network has stemmed from Birth to 3 that you both have seen?

Samantha Cortez: I would say that we've had the opportunity to work with the parenting network in the past two or three years in providing specific parenting classes and trying to increase our family engagement and building a sense of community in Birth to 3. We had an event Friday, May 19th, at the zoo for our Birth to 3 families. And we had over about 400 families attend and just got to know and get to interact with other families who are facing the similar challenges. And it was really great and nice to see that.

Audrey Nowakowski: Crystal, could you talk about any other positive impact on families in Milwaukee County that the Birth to 3 program has seen?

Crystal Vang: Yeah, for sure. So then we also with the parenting network, we had what was called the fast classes. And so that's an eight week series of once a week for eight weeks. And this is a time where families can come together and have a meal together and also spend some quality time with their child. Also, they get to separate from their child and then be able to meet with the adults that are in the group and have some conversations with other parent partners. So with that, we're building the community that is much needed in this population, you know, with young children because, again, you know, every child learns differently. And every parent also parents a little bit different. So being able to come together to unify, you know, that community, that support for each other, just to know that they're not alone in this and that, you know, even though you're taking your own path, you're also walking alongside other people and peers that are going through the same thing.

Joy Powers: Samantha Cortez is the Birth to 3 program coordinator for Milwaukee County. And Crystal Vang is Milwaukee County's Birth to 3 liaison. They spoke with Lake Effect's Audrey Nowakowski in 2023. Still to come, we'll share all the science you can soak in at the beach. But first, we'll drop in on a summer camp for kids who are learning skilled trades like welding. That's next on Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM. Milwaukee's NPR. This is Lake Effect on 89.7 WUWM. I'm Joy Powers. When you think of summer camp, you may think of fishing and bonfires under the stars. But what about a summer camp with welding and soldering? WUWM education reporter, Katherine Kokal, takes us inside a week long Wisconsin summer camp for high school kids interested in the skilled trades.

Katherine Kokal: I meet 18-year-old JaShawn Graves as he's using a grinder to smooth out the edges of a weld that he's just performed. There are sparks flying everywhere. They're landing on his thick jacket sleeves and on the workbench around him.

JaShawn Graves: So right now we're making like sheet metal lampshades and we're in the other room we're soldering making like a lamp pole and things like that. So we are, right now, I'm grinding it. I just finished welding the entire lampshade together. So now I welded it and now I am grinding it, make sure everything's just smooth, there's no sharp things on it, and everything like that

Katherine Kokal: Graves is one of 20 students from all around southeastern Wisconsin participating in a week-long, heavy-metal summer experience. Students apply ahead of time and have to be interviewed and then accepted to this free camp, which is hosted by different sponsors and unions across 29 states. Graves just graduated from Nicolet High School, and despite his age, this isn't the first time he's welding. He's interested in a career as an electrician.

JaShawn Graves: I really like working with my hands, and I think it's a really good alternative to college. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But I knew I wanted to do something where I'm hands-on and just working on a lot of things and creating things that I know I like.

Katherine Kokal: This competitive summer camp is basically a launch pad for a career in the trades. The students, some as young as 16, travel to different shops around the Milwaukee metro area to learn skills, meet people in the industry, and end the week with a swag bag, which includes steel-toed boots and all the basics from Milwaukee Tool. Jill Ackerman says the idea is to show them that the trades offer a different opportunity to work with their hands, meet great people, and avoid college debt. She's the Assistant Director of Workforce Development for the Plumbing, Mechanical and Sheet Metal Contractors Alliance.

Jill Ackerman: A lot of high schoolers, too, in general, when you're thinking about what you want to do after you graduate, it's from what you've been exposed to, right? So it could be as early as seventh and eighth grade, you're looking at, you know, say, you have a police officer come to school, you have a firefighter, you had a doctor, someone in, you know, anyone in healthcare or marketing or finance. It's what they've been exposed to. It could be the families that they grew up in, what their parents or other members do. Then they're like, "Oh, well that's what I want to do. That's what interests me." So now when you start to bring in the trades and open up the door to show different career pathways, they're, like, "Oh my goodness, I didn't know I could go and do this, and I can make a lot of money, a good lifestyle out of it." The trades and registered apprenticeship is just another version of college for the trades. But it doesn't cost them anything. They're actually making money while they go to school.

Katherine Kokal: This is part of the same argument that the skilled trades have been making forever — that college isn't for everyone, and there are great career paths that exist outside of a four-year degree program. But that argument is landing differently now, as costs of college and the general cost of living skyrockets. Young students are increasingly skeptical about taking on college debt. And social media has connected them with tradespeople who are sharing what their workdays and annual salaries look like. Unprompted, several students at the Heavy Metals Camp told me that they've seen these types of videos. It made Port Washington High School student Logan Prochaska excited for what his career can look like and prompted him to do a little shopping.

Logan Prochaska: I went on TikTok, actually, and I bought a welder for only $80. It's no gas though, but... And I've been kind of just playing around in the garage ever since.

Katherine Kokal: You bought a welding kit on TikTok?

Logan Prochaska: I did. I bought a welder off of TikTok for $80 from some company. I don't remember what the company was.

Katherine Kokal: Away from the welding stations, I caught up with Ava Ayres and Emily Grassenhuber in the copper shop, as they were soldering copper pipes together. Ava attends Oak Creek High School and Emily attends Waterford Union High School. Both knew before this week that they wanted to go into the skilled trades. Here's Emily.

Emily Grassenhuber: I just always really liked welding, and I'm really into it. And I'm looking to be a steamfitter, so I think it's good.

Katherine Kokal: Ava says that being a woman in the skilled trades means that she'll be forging a path forward for others. It's also a boost for her own self-confidence.

Ava Ayres: When you get out here and you start doing stuff, the guys start to realize that women are very capable of doing it. And even today, some of them were saying how we were doing stuff better than the men. And it's like, I don't know, I feel like it kind of makes me stronger, because it's like I can prove my point that being a woman, I can do it better than you. It's not just a man's job.

Katherine Kokal: Watch out world. The next generation of tradespeople are coming. For Lake Effect, I'm Education Reporter Katherine Kokal.

Joy Powers: Summer is in full swing. And before we close out today's show, we're going to the beach where the sun is shining, kids are screaming, and there's a lot to learn. Our guide is Hannah Wagie, a professor of chemistry at Wisconsin Lutheran College. She joins Lina Tran to talk about all the science you can find when you're playing in the sand.

Lina Tran: I meet Hannah Wagie at South Beach Park in Port Washington. We don't even make it past the parking lot before she notices a butterfly. Its upper wings are streaked with orange and black, like a tiger, and the underside of its wings are all warm browns and grays, with spots that look like eyes. The butterfly floats up to greet her and lands on her finger, just one of the many wonders that Hannah hunts for when she's at the beach — wonders that she says you can train yourself to notice and wonders that enrich your experience of the world around you.

Hannah Wagie: When I do a nature walk, I'm always observing and trying to look for interesting things. So when I'm at the beach I'm often looking for fossils. Fossils are everywhere. People should know this. You can just sit down and dig, and you can find fossils everywhere on the beach.

Lina Tran: So this is what Hannah does at the beach. She zooms in, observes, uses all her senses. She says she's the kind of person who prefers the rigor of the school year to endless summer days. So when she's at the beach, she likes the structure of paying attention.

Hannah Wagie: It does give me a sense of mission. It gives me a purpose. And again, as a scientist, I'm always trying to ask questions and trying to observe. I think one of the things I realized as I walked down a beach or something like that, it's different every time I go. It's different everytime I go. And I'm different everytime I go. But you only notice that if you're noticing it, if you're looking closely at what's around you.

Lina Tran: And that's what I wanted to talk to Hannah about. What kinds of things can we learn from a walk on the beach? Of course, she is a chemistry professor, so she has some knowledge about the beach and Lake Michigan that makes even the sand between our toes seem special. We're both wearing sandals.

Hannah Wagie: Sand is made up of a variety of things, but largely it's comprised of silica, which is the mineral form of the molecule, silicon dioxide. Mixed in with the sand, of course, there would be other shells, which would be calcium carbonate. The way we use silica is we melt it, that's why sand is a component in glass. Silicon dioxide is like window pane glass. But there are actually creatures that eat sand, which I think is kind of mind-blowing. Cyanobacteria actually will eat through silicon dioxide, so grains of sand, so these tiny microbes. It seems like they're scavenging for things like iron and manganese. But also, once the sand has been sort of eaten through and released as individual molecules, other creatures, diatoms in particular, actually use that silicon dioxide, those little molecules that make up sand, to create their exoskeleton. And they have these like really lacy patterns that form sort of a cage. And so if you were able to look really closely at the sand under a microscope, you would not only see little jagged pieces of quartz and silica, you'd see these intricate patterns made of glass. It's like a glass house that it makes for itself.

Lina Tran: And all this stuff is constantly on the move, the sand you take a nap on, the stuff that gets stuck in your shoes and hair.

Hannah Wagie: Those grains of sand were eroded from bedrock, like at the bottom of the lake. So wind and waves abrade the rock and create little pieces of sand, which is what washes up on the shore. Once it gets to shore, it continues to move with the wind. We're in Port Washington, so there's big bluffs. So the little pieces of sand, the little pieces of silt and clay that travel the furthest, end up on a bluff. And so what's underneath you at the sand is always moving. It's always new. It's always being renewed.

Lina Tran: Heavy rain can speed things up, make things move faster. It's something we can see now as climate change brings more intense precipitation to the Great Lakes. A couple years ago, there was a landslide in Port Washington. Rain had soaked the mud and clay until it was too heavy for the bluff to hold. This was on North Beach, one of Hannah's favorite spots on Lake Michigan. She and her kids went to another park up on the bluffs to check out the landslide from above.

Hannah Wagie: The reddish clay kind of tumbled down the bluffs and just completely like wiped out the path.

Lina Tran: And looking further back, how was all of this created? You know, where did it come from?

Hannah Wagie: The bedrock that's at the bottom of the Great Lakes Basins, they are volcanic in origin. And of course, in order to get these little pieces of sand that we see on the beaches today, glaciers came through and carved out the basins for the Great lakes. And then those little pieces rock that got eroded by the glaciers is what we see as sand. And these are like movable pieces of silicon dioxide now.

Lina Tran: I love that. In Wisconsin, everything always comes back to the glaciers.

Hannah Wagie: Oh yeah. For sure, yes. We are only here because they carved out this place for us.

Lina Tran: Hannah says she wasn't always this way. She grew up in Wisconsin, enjoying Lake Michigan a lot like her kids do now, scrambling on bluffs and splashing in the water. But now her walks have this focus to them. She's contemplative and observant. She notices what's changed and has her eyes out for things she's maybe never seen before. She searches milkweed plants for caterpillars and hunts for agates, gems that contain bands of color, painted by the lake. For her, things kind of shifted when she was in graduate school, getting her PhD in chemistry.

Hannah Wagie: I was you know sort of in the midst of my science training and also starting a family. And so I was like really slowed down during that period of time where I was studying something really really intently in graduate school, where I was like doing this really intense observation. And of course, having small children, you just can't move very quickly. And so trying to get outside with my children and spending time just resulted in me having to slow down. And I think that's really when this sort of world of science all around me sort of opened up, and also sort of being trained to observe really closely sort of like coalesced. So I was definitely a grown-up, like by the time I sort of had this attitude of going to the beach and like really looking and observing.

Lina Tran: Being a mom and then being a scientist, both of those things are like huge learning curves in their own way. And they just happened at the same time.

Hannah Wagie: They did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I definitely chose to have children in graduate school, which again was kind of an odd thing to do. That's not something a lot of people choose, but it was a really very special time for me. And yeah, it really brought me new perspectives in two different ways at the same time.

Lina Tran: Hannah's kids are also teaching her new ways to see the water. A couple years ago, after they'd all gaped at the wreckage of the landslide, they came back down to South Beach, and Hannah's daughter made this observation.

Hannah Wagie: As we were looking for fossils on the beach, she recognized, she said, no one has ever seen these rocks before. They are new every time we come. And she's absolutely right that it's just fascinating to think that a pebble that you pick up on the beach may never have been viewed by a human before. It had been unearthed from the depths of the bedrock on the floor of the lake. And so it's, even though it's ancient, it's new.

Lina Tran: After Hannah and I say goodbye, she walks back across the beach to the parking lot. I notice while she's walking, her eyes are trained down on the sand. Who knows what she might see? For Lake Effect, I'm Lina Tran.

Joy Powers: That was Lina Tran speaking with Hannah Wagie, a professor of chemistry at Wisconsin Lutheran College. And that wraps up today's show. Thank you so much for being here with us. I'm Joy Powers. If you miss any of Lake Effect, you can find all of our conversations at wuwm.com. If you'd like to take the show on the go, you download the Lake Effect podcast wherever you get your podcasts. One in four children live in poverty in Milwaukee. Tomorrow on Lake Effect, we'll look at how hunger impacts kids. We'll also look ahead to the upcoming Black Girl Fest. Thanks so much for joining us right here on listener-supported 89.7 WUWM, Milwaukee's NPR.