The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs highlights the importance of local community involvement in watershed stewardship and land use planning. The Bridgewater State University RiverNet Watershed Access Lab Project prepares "key educators" who assist their local community in developing watershed initiative projects. Teachers participating in the Watershed Access Lab Project learn principles in watershed assessment and train their students and community members through local watershed initiative assessment projects in Massachusetts.
Bridgewater State University plays a major role in advancing the concepts of Watershed Initiative through the RiverNet Watershed Access Lab. The Watershed Access Lab (WAL) provides state-of-the-art technology used in land use and water quality assessment to train teachers for use with their student teams to conduct local watershed investigations. Teachers participating in the program are eligible to use equipment from the Watershed Access Lab to use in their schools to develop and conduct Watershed Projects. The project goal is to evaluate the land use impacts on water quality in the participating school district's community.