By Mary Ann Melton
Icthyology Class
Good Water Master Naturalist Fall Training Class will start on Tuesday evening, September 3. The last class will be on December 17. The class will meet on Tuesday evenings from 6:00-9:30 p.m. Some classes and field trips will be on Saturdays. Cost is $150 and includes the comprehensive Texas Master Naturalist Program manual as well as a one-year membership to the Good Water Chapter. For couples who plan to share the manual, there is a discount for the second student. Click here for online registration. The Tuesday classes will start at 1:00 p.m. and finish around 5:00. There are three Saturday field trips and classes planned. Check back on the website below after February 15 for the link to the schedule.
Bill Neville, one of our Fall Training class members says, “After my Master
Trees/Forestry Class
Naturalist training, my senses seem to have been re-calibrated. I see nature in a different way. My eyes and ears now seem to be tuned in to new sights and sounds that I wasn’t aware of prior to training.”
Click here for online training registration: Online Training Application.
Ornithology Field Trip
Texas Master Naturalists are people who still like to play in the dirt and are willing to get their feet wet and their hands dirty. We are a volunteer organization and we have many opportunities to serve. Good Water Master Naturalists volunteer at many parks in Williamson County, provide nature education to children and adults in many different settings and participate in many Citizen Science projects such as Texas Stream Team Monitoring, Cornell’s eBird, and iNaturalist. To become a Master Naturalist, one takes a training class of over 40 hours of expert training about almost every aspect of the natural world – soils, backyard habitats, prairies, rangeland management, forest ecology, birds, mammals, fish, insects, botany, climate, geology, and archaeology.
To complete the certification process, each volunteer completes 40 hours of 
service and an additional 8 hours of training. To maintain their certification each year, volunteers are encouraged to take their knowledge and volunteer for 40 hours and take 8 hours of additional training.