As we click, flip, and scroll through hundreds of sites and channels, cruising for our daily dose of e-thrills, it’s easy to forget there’s a beautiful, wild, creative universe right in our backyards.

I had the chance to experience a tiny part of that universe on a recent Saturday afternoon, when a couple of friends, Yolanda and Monika, asked me if I wanted to join them to monitor the water quality of the stream that runs in back of our house.

Yolanda and Monika are part of a large grassroots network of volunteers who selflessly give their time to regularly monitor the quality of streams, lakes, and rivers across the country. Government agencies simply don’t have the resources to regularly collect environmental data on all the myriad waterways in the United States, so they depend on getting help from trained volunteers like Yolanda and Monika.

Benthic invertebrates: bellwethers of water quality

Yolanda and Monika regularly monitor benthic invertebrates counts in a small local stream called Woods Creek.

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