• For the Love of Muck and Macroinvertebrates: A Former Camper Returns to Conduct Research on Woodend’s Restored Pond

    By Meg Jarvis I’m Meg Jarvis (they/them), and this past summer I surveyed the aquatic macroinvertebrate populations in Woodend Sanctuary’s recently restored pond. I attend university in Brighton, England, but I grew up just around the corner from Woodend. I went to camp there throughout my childhood and, when I aged out of camp, I…


  • Stream Monitoring Volunteers are Your “Eyes on the Ground”

    October. Fall Monitoring. Three incidents discovered and reported. For nearly 30 years, WQM volunteers have played a crucial role in protecting streams by serving as “eyes on the ground.” They do this by observing, identifying and reporting potential threats.


  • Equipping our Community Scientists to Monitor Streams

    Nature Forward received a grant from the Society for Biodiversity Preservation (SBP) in January 2022 to purchase equipment for use by our volunteers who monitor streams in the Washington, DC Metro region. Our Water Quality Monitoring (WQM) community science program, which has been  running for 30 years, helps fill data gaps in the freshwater stream…


  • Why water quality monitoring speaks to me

    By Pete Yarrington, long-time WQM volunteer Editor’s note: This article was adapted from Pete Yarrington’s testimony at the May 17, 2001 Nature Forward (then Audubon Naturalist Society) presentation to the Montgomery County Planning Board. This article was originally published in the September, 2001 Naturalist Quarterly publication. ANS water quality monitoring site #29 is located on…