In May, members of the Virginia Master Naturalists and the Friends of the Middle River teamed up to offer members of the current training cohort and other certified naturalists to have a hands-on experience learning about macroinvertebrates at the Sandy Bottom Park in Bridgewater. Andrea Dono (VMN) and Pete Cooper (FoMR), both certified water monitors, lead the outing and invited participants to trytheir hand at taking samples from the river and practice sorting. About a dozen people got to learn about how to use macros for water quality monitoring. We hope that this “macros petting zoo” was a step to inspire new people to one day become certified. Special thanks to Jeanine Botkin, John Bauman, and Lindsay Kilborne for joining Andrea and Pete and assisting the group with set up and identification. Contact Andrea if you would like to join a fall session. One is not currently planned but if there is interest, we could explore hosting another session again this year.

– Andrea Dono