WHAT IS BIOCITIZEN? The word “biocitizen” is a contraction of “biotic citizen,” a term and idea conceived by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) who is widely celebrated for conceiving the “land ethic.” A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. A...Continue Reading

  What is the Biocitizen Corps? There is a moment when a student wants to do more than learn about their biome. They want to care for it. They want to act on what they’re learning, turn theory into practice, and bring health and vitality to the world. The Biocitizen Corps offers these students structured...Continue Reading

The Biocitizen Corps was up to its knees in chilly flowing water again this Fall, catching and inventory the bugs who live in the substrates of our rivers and brooks. River bugs that trout love to eat, & that require cold oxygen-rich water, are the ones we hope to catch, because not only do trout...Continue Reading

If you know what bugs live in a river, you can gauge its health. So, every year just as Summer slips into Fall, the Biocitizen Corps ventures out and catches some, following EPA protocols, in a national citizen science initiative called “Rapid Bioassessments of Benthic Invertebrates.” Certain bugs need lots of oxygen. The cleanest coldest...Continue Reading

Biocitizens—it’s rapid biotic assessment time! Which means: time to get into the rivers and collect the bugs that live under rocks. The bugs tell us—by their amount, variety and size—how oxygenated (& healthy) our rivers are: an annual “physical,” just like at the doctors’. The Biocitizen Corps reunites in the early Fall to care for...Continue Reading

Our national economy isn’t making us happy. We don’t want to contribute to global warming, for example, but our economy does and so do we. We don’t want to drink plastic-bottle water, and fill up the sea and cover the land with them, but the tap water tastes bad or we’re traveling or whatever. Many,...Continue Reading