Wetlands are more than swamps or smelly bodies of water collecting trash. They are more than an inconvenience to a housing developer or a highway builder. They are habitat for many animals and plants, along with value to people as well as our natural environment. Ponds don't have to be viewed as scary, stinky, mosquito-breeding wastelands. Instead we should look at wetlands as home to frogs, ducks, fish and beaver. Deer, coyotes, and other wildlife drink from the edges, while hawks, eagles and other birds hunt from above. Frogs, sparrows, and many more animals feed on the mosquitoes. In addition we will discover eagles and bats feeding on the frogs. Entire food webs can be observed at the wetland's edge.

Wetlands come in many forms, locations, and climates. They cover about 6% of the land surface of the earth. Wetlands are riverlands, swamps, wet meadows, marshes, tidal basins, bogs, fens, and more. They differ from lakes, rivers and oceans because they are defined as areas having, at least periodically, waterlogged soils or standing water.

Wetlands stay wet for any of several reasons: they are in low areas that remain saturated by rain, they are fed from below by groundwater that is at or near the surface, they are near rivers or other bodies of water that flood them periodically, or they are saturated along the coasts by the tide. Beavers can make wetlands by damming a stream. People also create wetlands unintentionally by blocking normal water flow with construction, or intentionally by flooding areas for uses such as waterfowl breeding grounds.