July 20, 2019
7:30 am – 11:00 am
(MD) Join Brookside Gardens, Latino Outdoors, Latino Health Initiative and Montgomery County Councilmember Gabe Albornoz in celebrating Latino Conservation Week at the Second Annual Healthy Parks, Healthy People 5k Fun Run/Walk!
Thursday, July 18th
5:30-7:30pm
Historic Earth Conservation Corps Pumphouse
Join the GSDC Board of Directors for a summer evening of networking and celebration on the Anacostia River. Capital Nature is a proud member of the Green Spaces for DC (GSDC) alliance of organizations that support healthy and accessible green areas for the Washington DC area. Come hear about their advocacy. See old friends and make new ones. Special guest, naturalist and author Melanie Choukas-Bradley, will talk about her latest project!
Refreshments provided by The Green Bee Cafe and friends.
Free. To attend, please RSVP.
Photo by Barbara J. Saffir
“Art Director” needed – Some concepts are expressed better with art than with photos or words. If you would like to coordinate the work of artists who might enjoy donating artistic interpretations for the PNN website and other purposes of things like “Baby birds need insects, and insects need native plants,” email [email protected].
A second website manager needed – The work is light, but it is good to have more than one person doing updates to the PNN website.
Know of any good lawn and garden maintenance companies? PNN would like to compile a list of vendors that have experience in maintaining native plantings and/or environmentally friendly landscapes. Email your recommendations to [email protected]. PNN will then email the companies and ask them if they would like to self-identify as ones that have that kind of experience.
Help label plants at garden centers – There are now 16 garden centers where we are putting red stickers on the Virginia native plants. PNN needs more volunteers at several of those nurseries (particularly Lake Ridge Nursery in Dumfries, Merrifield Fair Oaks and Burke Nursery, but there are others as well). It is a great way to get to know your native plants, and very fun as well! PNN tries to have someone visit each nursery a couple times a month and to have at least two volunteers at each place. They also need help approaching garden centers that are not yet participating.
Another volunteer opportunity – Sept 29: NatureFest, Herndon. Sign up here.
Next Steering Committee meeting – All are welcome! The next meeting is scheduled for August 13 at 10:30 am, but please always check the Event Calendar in case there is a change.
Photo by Ana Ka’ahanui
Margaret Fisher
A commitment to stewardship of the Earth has a spiritual foundation in most faith communities. In recent years, many have come to understand that their responsibility for nature begins at home, at their places of worship. The true residents of churches, temples and mosques are not the humans using the buildings, which often sit empty for much of the week, but the birds, butterflies, frogs and a host of other small congregants who share the property. When faith leaders ask “Who are our neighbors?”, they do not have far to look.
As you drive around Northern Virginia, you may notice more and more places of worship that are incorporating native plants into their landscaping. Six communities were given an extra hand with that process when the Audubon-at-Home program and Plant NOVA Natives awarded them grants provided by the National Audubon Society’s Coleman and Susan Burke Center for Native Plants. Members of each community created landscaping projects in visible areas of the property with signs to explain that native plants support birds and other wildlife. The new plantings were part of a greater educational process to demonstrate to congregants how they can take action on their own properties to save the local wildlife. As places of worship often include large areas of impervious surfaces, converting sections of lawn to conservation landscaping can bring significant benefits to our streams and the Chesapeake Bay.
Grace Presbyterian now has several very visible pollinator gardens buzzing with bees. Organizer Dave Lincoln reports, “It seems every few weeks one of our Pastors brings up our obligations as stewards of God’s Creation, and most times they mention the importance of restoring productivity in our landscaping choices.”
According to Nancy Davis at Beth El Hebrew Congregation, “Service to the community is a basic part of Judaism. Our planting day with students in grades three through seven was a tremendous success. With the help of master gardeners, the students put in hundreds of native species purchased with money from the Audubon Burke grant, in a little more than two hours. Each student planted from one to three plugs or plants. Preschoolers did some planting on another day.”
Steve Wharton of St. Peter’s in the Woods writes, “Reaction to the Pollinator Garden has been very positive. This past Sunday the minister, Reverend Susan, stopped me to tell me that she usually pauses as she enters or leaves and takes a moment to see what is visiting the flowers. She said, “Yesterday there were the usual Bees, a Monarch Butterfly and a Hummingbird all in the garden at once.” She was quite excited about it. On my way out I was pleased to see a clear winged “hummingbird” moth. The bergamot in particular really draws in a wide variety of pollinators. Cannot wait to see what the garden attracts when the garden is more mature a couple years from now.”
The planting of native plants on the grounds of Our Lady Good Counsel Church and School has enhanced the awareness of nature particularly for families of preschool and elementary grade children. This focus on environmental stewardship is advocated by Pope Francis.
Crossroads United Methodist has long been involved in educating their own congregation and the surrounding community about the value of native plants. In 2017, they held a public screening of the movie Hometown Habitat, targeted at homeowners associations. They made use of the Burke Grant by converting large areas of lawn to native plantings near the church office entry. Beautiful sun and shade gardens now grace those areas.
McLean Islamic Center and Mosque held two plantings, one for the mosque’s entrance beds and one for the Gild Scout troop bed, and both were well attended. The Community Service Committee and the Sunday School followed up with a day that they initially called “How Green is your Deen?” “Deen” refers to religion, and children learned about the importance Islam places on preserving the environment and caring for other creatures.
For more details and many photos of these projects as well as ones at other places of worship, see the faith community section of the Plant NOVA Natives website. This web section is designed to help faith communities decide how to use native plants in their landscaping and how to educate themselves and the greater community about the importance of providing sanctuary on our own properties for our fellow beings. To see a few of those creatures in a church garden, watch this one minute video.
Frying Pan Farm Park
2709 West Ox Road, Herndon, VA
Friday, 2 August 2019
6 pm – finished
The 2019 Fairfax County 4-H Fair & Carnival is fast approaching. The organizers would like to invite you to participate as a judge for the static exhibits. Youth and adults from around Fairfax County will be bringing their exhibits to the Fair showcasing them in fourteen different exhibit departments:
Apiary Products
Science & Technology
Crafts & Woodworking
Floriculture
Visual Arts
Horticulture
Foods & Nutrition
Clothing & Textiles
Interior Design
Scrapbooks & Displays
Black & White Photography
Color Photography
Writing
Short Films
They provide dinner, judging instructions, a Fair T-shirt, and a HUGE Thank You!
For more information or to volunteer contact [email protected]
National Wildlife Federation
11100 Wildlife Center Drive, Reston 20190
Thursday, 26 September 2019
7 – 9 pm
Field Trip:
Waggoner’s Gap (At top of Kittatinny Ridge, near Carlisle, PA)
Saturday, 28 September 28 2019
9:30 a.m.
Fee: $50 ASNV members, $60 non-members
Join the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia for Stacia Novy’s presentation on birds-of-prey. She will discuss flight
characteristics, identification and migration patterns, focusing on raptor species of the East Coast region. The presentation will be followed by a field trip for a day of hawk watching. You’ll apply knowledge learned in the workshop by observing kettles of Broad-winged Hawks, falcons, and other migrant raptors making their way south for the winter.
Stacia Novy has been involved with wildlife conservation projects for over 30 years, specializing in birds. She is on the Board of Directors for Save the Prairie Society, an organization that saved Wolf Road Prairie Nature Preserve from urban development in Westchester, Illinois. She has conducted avian surveys for Wolf Road Prairie, the Audubon Center at Riverlands, Missouri, and the USDA Henry White Experimental Farm. She collected nesting data on Elf Owls, Gilded Flickers, and Yellow-billed Cuckoos for Tucson Audubon Society and Sonoran Audubon Society to establish Important Bird Areas (IBAs) for those species in Arizona. Stacia has also worked with Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge biologists to band birds, radio-track ocelots, and conduct nocturnal surveys of mammals. In Texas and Belize, she assisted in releasing endangered Aplomado Falcons and Orange-breasted Falcons for The Peregrine Fund.
Mason Neck State Park (7301 High Point Road, Lorton, VA) needs YOU! Do you want to help preserve Virginia’s natural heritage? Are you a retiree or empty nester with a passion for conservation? Are you looking to show a current or future employer you can handle the challenge of public outreach? Then you are perfect for the job of Mason Neck State Park Volunteer! This is where you can help! Mason Neck State Park is offering new volunteer opportunities to help us better serve all those who visit the Park, which has been voted among the best state parks in the Nation.
Contact Station Greeter: YOU will greet visitors at the Contact Station, check passes or collect parking fees, and (most important!) suggest ways to best experience the many wonders of the Park, whether a family picnic or a visit to the playground alongside Belmont Bay, a hike or bird walk along one of our many trails, or (for the more adventurous) a few hours kayaking, canoeing, or biking.
Visitor Center Greeter: YOU will be the face of the Park to all those who enter the Visitor Center by answering questions about Park activities and conservation initiatives, scheduling canoe/kayak tours and bike rentals – and just chatting with the many people who visit the park from all across the Nation and the world, perhaps encouraging them to return to enjoy one of the many educational programs the Park Rangers offer each month.
For more information, contact:
Ariel Hartman, Assistant Manager
Mason Neck State Park
703-339-2385 (Office)
Or email Ariel at [email protected]
Jerry Nissley
I recently attended a family reunion at my cousin’s restored farm house in Southampton County, Virginia. Standing sentinel to the house is a massive eastern white oak (Quercus alba) dramatically adorned with resurrection fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides). I was taken with this newly discovered (if only to me) fern and later sat down to research and write an article about the fern.
Figure 1 House and oak tree
As I fondly rehashed conversations with the four generations at the reunion about how the land was recently recovered and the house rebuilt, and then discovered facts about the resurrection fern, what was originally an article revealed itself as a story. A story not only about a fern but more so of, well, resurrection—land into a distinguished Virginia farm, a house rebuilt into a home, and the recognition of a great white oak that has witnessed 350 years of history unfold. The symbolism of resurrection was inescapable.
The story parts blend so homogeneously with the first credo FMN students are introduced to: Awareness leads to knowledge which leads to appreciation which leads to conservation.
This story is an allegory of that credo. It tells of an initial awareness of the importance of the land and ensuing knowledge of its man-made and natural elements. It represents the appreciation of the forefather’s vision in developing the homestead and the innate desire of the current caretakers to preserve structures and conserve the beauty and integrity of the land’s natural treasures. One could loosely associate Jared Diamond’s warning about landscape amnesia—where people lose knowledge of how the natural world once was, with each succeeding generation accepting a degraded environment as the status quo (Diamond, 2005). That would not be the case with these people, with this environment.
As FMNers, we all love field trips right? So please, I invite you on a short, figurative field trip. One in which we will briefly discover some Virginia history, celebrate a sentinel oak, and then explore specific details about the resurrection fern.
The House
We begin our field trip at the house in Southampton County, Virginia. The property has been in the Hart family for over 150 years and is now a registered Virginia Century Farm. Originally the farmers raised livestock on open land; rotated peanuts, corn, cotton, and soybeans to maintain soil quality; and designated large portions for timber.
Even though the property has been continually farmed by the family, as generations passed, the main house and farm buildings were at times rented out to achieve the greatest economic potential. The main house was adequately maintained, but the auxiliary buildings not so much. A few were lost to time and lack of maintenance, but the barn and blacksmith shed faired better.
My cousins, Patricia and Paul Milteer, were able to make the property their permanent home and tirelessly restored the farm house, barn, and blacksmith’s shed. They later applied to the Virginia Century Farm Program, and the farm is now officially registered by the state as The Hart Farm.
As stated on the program’s web-site, the Virginia Century Farm Program recognizes and honors those farms that have been in operation for at least 100 consecutive years and the Virginia farm families whose diligent and dedicated efforts have maintained these farms, provided nourishment to their fellow citizens and contributed so greatly to the economy of the Commonwealth.
Figure 2 The Milteers’ Oak: Points: 366; Trunk circumference: 19’6”; Height: 100’; Average spread: 120’; Estimated age: 350 years
The family owners of farms designated as Virginia Century Farms receive a certificate signed by the Governor and the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, along with a sign for outdoor display (Century Farms, n.d.).
The Tree
Our field trip continues just out the front door. We can sit on the porch and consider the tree. Once the house and auxiliary buildings were restored functionally and aesthetically, the Milteers were able to focus on the massive eastern white oak standing as gatekeeper to their home. The oak provides home and food to a variety of animals. A barn owl (Tyto alba) nests in the branches and bats take sanctuary in the folds of the bark.
The acorns take only one growing season to develop unlike those of the red oak group, which require at least 18 months for maturation. They are much less bitter than acorns of red oaks so they are preferred by a wider variety of wildlife. They are small relative to most oaks, but are a valuable annual food notably for turkeys, wood ducks, pheasants, grackles, jays, nuthatches, thrushes, woodpeckers, rabbits, and deer. The white oak is the only known food plant for the Bucculatrix luteella and Bucculatrix ochrisuffusa caterpillars. (Q. Alba, n.d.)
Recognizing the tree’s impressive size, the Milteers reached out to The Virginia Big Tree Program, an educational program within the Virginia Cooperative Extension that started out as a 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) project in 1970. Today the program is coordinated by the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation at Virginia Tech. Their mission is to increase the care and appreciation for all trees—big and small—and educate the Commonwealth about the value of trees and forests. The Virginia Big Tree Program maintains a register of the five largest specimens of more than 300 native, non-native, and naturalized tree species. The register includes information about each tree’s size, location, and unique characteristics. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, n.d.)
Trees are ranked on a point system measuring height, crown spread, and trunk circumference. The 500-year-old national record holder for Q. alba grows in Brunswick, Virginia and scored 451 points in 2012. The next highest scoringVirginia Q. alba scored 398 (Southampton), 397 (Lee), and 396 (Albemarle) respectively. (Big trees, n.d.)
Byron Carmean and Gary Williamson, volunteers for Virginia Big Tree Program, scored the Milteer’s tree at 366, so it probably will not make the top five (maybe the top ten).
The Fern
Let’s move our field trip just off the porch to contemplate the fern. Field trips don’t get easier than this, folks!
Pleopeltis polypodioides (Andrews & Windham), also known as the resurrection fern, is a species of creeping, coarse-textured fern native to the Americas and Africa. The leathery, yellow-green pinnae (leaflets) are deeply pinnatifid and oblong. It attaches to its host with a branching, creeping, slender rhizome, which grows to 2 mm in diameter (P. Polypodioides, n.d.). The fern is facultative to North American Atlantic and Gulf Coast Plain physiographical areas.
Figure 3: Resurrection fern
This fern is not parasitic. It is an epiphyte or air plant. It attaches itself to a host and collects nourishment from air and water and nutrients that collect on the outer surface of the host. The resurrection fern lives commensalistically on the branches of large trees such as cypresses and may often be seen carpeting the shady areas on limbs of large oak trees as pictured on the Milteer’s tree. It also grows on rock surfaces and dead logs. In the southeastern United States, it is often found in the company of other epiphytic plants such as Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) and is always found with some type of moss (phylum Bryophyta). The fern has spores (sori) on the bottom of the fronds and sporulates in summer and early fall (Oak and Fern, n.d.). Interestingly, rhizome sections are also viable offspring and can root themselves in new medium.
The resurrection fern gets its name because it can survive long periods of drought by curling up its fronds and appearing desiccated, grey-brown and dead. However, when just a little water is presented, the fern will uncurl and reopen, appearing to “resurrect” and restores itself to a vivid green color in as little as three hours. Studies suggest these ferns could last 100 years without water and still revive after a single exposure.
When the fronds “dry” as shown in Figure 4 (2 weeks after the reunion), they curl with their bottom sides upwards. In this way, they rehydrate more quickly when rain comes, as most of the water is absorbed on the underside of the pinnae. Experiments have shown they are able to lose almost all their free water (up to 97%) and remain viable, though more typically they lose around 76% in dry spells. For comparison, most other plants may die after losing only 8-12%. When drying, the fern synthesizes the protein dehydrin, which allows cell walls to fold in a way that can be easily reversed later (Plant Signaling, n.d.).
Figure 4 Dry fronds
Even more life, in forms that aren’t visible to the naked eye, may call the fern a community home. Stems, leaves, and flowers host microorganisms, creating a habitat called a phyllosphere, a term used in microbiology to refer to all above-ground portions of plants as habitat for microorganisms. The phyllosphere is subdivided into the caulosphere (stems), phylloplane (leaves), anthosphere (flowers), and carposphere (fruits). The below-ground microbial habitats (i.e., the thin-volume of soil surrounding root or subterranean stem surfaces) are referred to as the rhizosphere and laimosphere, respectively. Most plants host diverse communities of microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists. Some are beneficial to the plant; others function as plant pathogens and may damage the host plant or even kill it. However, the majority of microbial colonists on any given plant have no detectable effect on plant growth or function. Plant phyllospheres in general are considered a hostile environment for microorganisms to live due to the variation in ultra-violet radiation, temperature, water, and nutrient contents. The phyllosphere of P. polypodioides is considered even more extreme due to the mercurial environmental conditions this epiphyte is typically found in and the dry/wet states it cycles through (Phyllosphere, n.d.).
Microorganisms do indeed survive in the phyllosphere of P. polypodioides though, even during its dry periods. In “Changes in the phyllosphere community of the resurrection fern, Polypodium polypodioides associated with rainfall and wetting”, Jackson (2006) found the micro-organism community changes as the resurrection fern moves from a dry state to wet state. Additionally, the researchers found that certain populations of microorganisms increase their enzyme activity after the fern revives. The researchers concluded that these microorganisms are responding to the secretion of sugary organics released through the plant’s surface once the fern is back to its robust, green state. Changes in phyllosphere extracellular enzyme activity are seen first as an initial burst of activity following rainfall and a subsequent burst approximately 48 hours later as additional nutrient sources emerge.
Figure 5 Revived fern
Cultural studies have shown that Native peoples historically recognized the significance of the resurrection fern. It has been used as a diuretic, a remedy for heart problems, and as a treatment for infections. Benefits of the resurrection fern are not lost on the modern pharmaceutical industry. Recent medical research confirming these cultural reports have shown that extracts from the fern have anti-arrhythmic cardiac properties—truly a potential for resurrection of the heart.
Figure 6 Resurrection Fern up close
Thanks in part to the training provided by dedicated FMN program instructors, in this case our resident dendrologist Jim McGlone, I am aware of trees like never before. I see trees, I see what lives in trees, I see ferns, and I see the need for conservation. What I need to see more clearly and we all need to experience is the indelible, spiritual, personal relationship people need to have with nature. People are the caretakers of the gifts we have been given on earth, and people need to be the stimulus for conservation. As John Muir (1911) elegantly journaled, “How fine Nature’s methods! How deeply with beauty is beauty overlaid!” It is inspiring to me that something as small as a fern encouraged awareness, understanding, appreciation and, yes, resurrection of “nature’s fine methods”.
Works Cited
Big trees. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.americanforests.org: www.americanforests.org/get-involved/americas-biggest-trees/bigtrees-search/bigtrees-advanced-search/
Century Farms. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.vdacs.virginia.gov: www.vdacs.virginia.gov/conservation-and-environmental-virginia-century-farms.shtml
Diamond, J. M. (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Viking.
Jackson, E. F. (2006). Changes in the phyllosphere community of the resurrection fern, Polypodium polypodioides, associated with rainfall and wetting. FEMS microbiology ecology 58.2, 236-246.
Muir, J. (1911). My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton Miffin.
Oak and Fern. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.sciphotos.com: www.sciphotos.com/2016/01/oak-tree-resurrection-fern.html
P. Polypodioides. (n.d.). Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleopeltis_polypodioides
Phyllosphere. (n.d.). Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllosphere
Plant Signaling. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3256378
Q. Alba. (n.d.). Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_alba
Virginia Cooperative Extension (n.d.). Virginia Big Tree Program. Retrieved from ext.vt.edu: http://ext.vt.edu/natural-resources/big-tree.html
Butterfly Class: An Introduction
July 18
7:00-8:30 PM
Reston, VA Vernon Walker Nature Center
Butterfly count July 20
Discover the colorful and diverse lives of Reston’s “flying flowers.” Learn how to identify Reston’s common butterflies and get a basic introduction to their life history. This class is a great way to prepare for the Reston Butterfly Count.
Register by July 15. Free for participants in July 20 count, otherwise $5. (Click on Nature, then scroll down for Walker Nature Center and scroll to Wildlife Counts and Classes.)
Dragonfly Class: An Introduction
July 25
7:00-8:30 PM
Reston, VA Vernon Walker Nature Center
Dragonfly count July 27
Discover the fast and fascinating lives of Reston’s “flying dragons.” Learn basic identification, natural history and conservation of local dragonflies. Learn to identify Reston’s common dragonflies and get a basic introduction to their bizarre behavior and complex history.
Register by July 22. Free for participants in the July 27 count. (Click on Nature, then scroll down for Walker Nature Center and scroll to Wildlife Counts and Classes.)
Reston Association Stream Monitoring Workshop
When: Saturday, July 13, 8:00-11:00am
Where: Reston VA
Spring is here and the warm weather is creeping back. What better way to enjoy the changing seasons than to get your feet wet in one of Reston’s streams? RA welcomes new volunteers to assist with stream monitoring at several locations. Get involved with a small team to collect data and identify insects with the goal of assessing the health of Reston’s streams. Not only do you get to learn about streams, it also provides an opportunity to make new friends! Learn more and register.
Pope’s Head Creek Stream Monitoring Session
When: Saturday, July 13, 9:00am-12:00pm
Where: Old Colchester Rd., Fairfax Station VA
Please join us at this lovely site where we can drive right up to the stream bank. No experience necessary. Find details here. RSVP to Margaret here.
Little Pimmit Run Stream Monitoring Workshop
When: Saturday, July 13, 10:00am-12:30pm
Where: Off Maddux Lane, McLean, VA
Join NVSWCD as we discover aquatic life in Pimmit Run! This official NVSWCD stream monitoring workshop covers watershed health, what macroinvertebrates tell us about stream quality, and what you can do to prevent pollution in your local stream. This workshop will also help to prepare you to become a certified stream monitor, and is the last NVSWCD workshop before the certification workshop in August. Registration is limited. Send questions to Ashley Palmer and RSVP here.
Lake Accotink Stream Cleanup
When: Sunday, July 14, 9:00-11:00am
Where: Lake Accotink Park, Springfield VA
* Lake Accotink Trail entrance at Ellet and Inverchapel Road
* Lake Accotink Marina
* Lake Accotink Trail entrance at the end of Danberry Forest Drive (Kirkham and Uxbridge Court Playground
Meet at one of the above locations, pick up trash bags from the volunteer lead, and hit the trail to fill your trash bags with debris. Long sleeves, gloves, boots, and long pants are encouraged. Learn more on the Friends of Accotink Creek calendar.
Broad Run/Dawkin’s Branch Stream Monitoring Session
When: Saturday, August 3, 10:30am-12:30pm
Where: Bristow, VA
Parking is in the upper parking lot of Victory Lakes Elementary School parking at 12001 Tygart Lake, Bristow VA 20136. Follow signs near the playground to the Broad Run trail near the kiosk area. Join Sonnie Coffey at this beautiful adopted outdoor learning site for more water quality awareness in Prince William County. You’re invited to come learn more about benthic invertebrates and how they can determine the water quality of a stream. For more information and RSVP, please contact Sonnie Coffey.
Reston Association Stream Monitoring Workshop
When: Wednesday, August 14, 1:00-4:00pm
Where: Walker Nature Center, Reston VA
Summer is here and the warm weather is creeping back. What better way to enjoy the changing seasons than to get your feet wet in one of Reston’s streams? RA welcomes new volunteers to assist with stream monitoring at several locations. Get involved with a small team to collect data and identify insects with the goal of assessing the health of Reston’s streams. Not only do you get to learn about streams, it also provides an opportunity to make new friends! Learn more and register.
Reston Association Stream Monitoring Workshop
When: Saturday, August 24, 8:00-11:00am
Where: Reston VA
Summer is here and the warm weather is creeping back. What better way to enjoy the changing seasons than to get your feet wet in one of Reston’s streams? RA welcomes new volunteers to assist with stream monitoring at several locations. Get involved with a small team to collect data and identify insects with the goal of assessing the health of Reston’s streams. Not only do you get to learn about streams, it also provides an opportunity to make new friends! Learn more and register.
NOVA Stream Monitor Certification Workshop
This event is jointly organized by the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District and the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District and is open to anyone aspiring to become a Certified Stream Monitor.
Once certified, a monitor can adopt a stream site to monitor quarterly. The certification/training follows the Virginia Save Our Streams (SOS) monitoring protocol and the data collected is sent to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
All certified monitors are also invited to seize this opportunity to meet with the Chesapeake Monitoring Council Coordinator for new monitoring meters or get old meters calibrated.
To register and for more information,
please contact Veronica Tangiri (Prince William) or Ashley Palmer (Fairfax)