Let me preface this by saying yes, I was the one in the river.

Macroinvertebrate biodiversity—it’s a mouthful, sure, but it’s what the Loudoun Academy of Science Class of 2026 found themselves immersed in (some more so than others) for their first-quarter research project. For context: macroinvertebrates are tiny spineless critters (read: bugs) that live beneath the muck and filthy water of Loudoun’s creeks and rivers, and biodiversity is a measure of the variety and evenness of species in an environment. Just as one species of bird dominating the skies is an indicator of environmental catastrophe, a disturbance in the natural balance of microscopic aquatic life can spell disaster for the ecosystem that relies on it.

Let me preface this by saying—in my defense—I fell.

Imagine, if you will, three sophomore scientists clad in old work clothes and collection equipment. All are under 5’3”, one is carrying a collection net twice her size, and the others are armed with an array of broken farm buckets, aluminum pie plates, papers, and similar miscellanies. Our objective? To assess the quality of biodiversity in a creek downstream of my property in the rural armpit of Loudoun County, thus providing valuable insights into the health of Loudoun’s stream life as impacted by a broad array of independent variables– the presence of wineries, urbanization, and hiking trails were among those chosen.

Look, I’m used to hiking. I live on a farm, I’ve owned several hundred chickens over the past dozen years, I’ve been left in the rain and pulled a stranded sailboat along the coast and covered in muck beyond human recognition. But I don’t think I could have prepared myself for macroinvertebrate biodiversity.

My first error was a complete miscalculation of the area in which I live. Out in the country, it’s hard to tell tree from tree—and because I’ve spent so long knee-deep in gopher holes dodging briars, I guess I assumed the worst. I completely forgot about the (winding, gravel, but nonetheless functional) road that led directly to the target stream and instead led my pack of scientists through the dense woodland of my good ol’ home on the range in a perilously marshy trek…only to pop out onto the country road again, tired and mildly irritated.

I’d commandeered my grandmother’s muck boots for the purpose of preserving my toes, and my second error was assuming that would be enough. It took me the whole of thirty seconds to overstep my boundaries with the wrath of the creek, and my socks said hello to the silty water before I’d caught sight of a single macroinvertebrate. The stream in question is a decently important member of my daily life—last time it rose, it compromised the bridge above it, closing one of two entrances to my property for over one and a half years. Now I found myself clinging to the rocks beneath it, glaring at the cleaning products and empty gasoline can that a fellow, anonymous farmer had left lying within a meter of the water source. Hello, nature.

My comrades, bless them, are city kids by my standards. (Suburbs, technically, but I can’t imagine walking to a grocery store in anything less than an hour.) By any means, we clung to the rocks, net and bucket in hand, inching through the treacherous hike towards a section of the water we suspected would yield our first subjects.

That’s when I jumped in.

What’s life if you don’t get your boots a little bit dirty? Mind you, I’d completely forgotten my phone was in my pocket at this time, but I trudged upstream to the absolute horror of my companions, took possession of the net, and proceeded to scoop up the sludge from the bottom of the tiny rural creek. We found a couple critters in that creek—a little buddy who looked for all the world like a leaf and evaded all attempts at identification, several crayfish who doubtlessly would have picked a fight with us had we been similar in size, and a number of thumbnail-sized bivalve clams who proved much tamer than their many-legged cousins.

(My third error was the fate of the phone. It did ultimately live, though I’m not sure how: though no doubt partially submerged at one point or another, it still functions as per usual and, thus, appears neither waterlogged nor filled with silt.)

I crawled up the bank and squelched to the side of the road.

We filmed three video clips that day of me emptying out my boots.

Let me preface this by saying, yes, I am a scientist. I’m a country girl too.

The majority of the population of the Academies hails from the hustle and bustle of suburban life. The stereotypes that surround the rural population portray us primarily through stereotypes—uneducated and traditional, secluded and peculiar, incapable of change. When I say ‘farmer,’ do you picture cows and barnyards, a gaggle of kids in cowboy boots rounding Bessie up from the pasture with thick, comedic accents? I know many of my rural neighbors who are much more dedicated to the land than me—some with a thousand times the grit as this sub-country princess. Though I may not be the most qualified spokesperson for the ‘farm-people’ of Loudoun County, nor Virginia, nor the world at large, I strongly believe that the perspective of the countryside is crucial to the sciences—the attitude, the approach, the lifestyle.

I spent that day studying biodiversity. Apparently, my local creek isn’t especially stellar in terms of species distribution. Looking back, I can’t help but compare the dragonfly larvae and crayfish to the population I see in the Academies of Loudoun—is biodiversity not applicable to the interactions across cultures and regions, each and every perspective that enters the heavy double doors of our glittering glass building? 

I am proud to be one of Western Loudoun’s two points on our final data map—and of that pair, the only stream more than a mile from urban development. I am a child of the countryside, with both my cowboy boots and my lab coat in my closet. My STEM summit medals hang right next to the Junior Poultry Judge Champion plaque on my wall; the bookshelf by my bed holds both Theodore Gray’s Molecules and the American Poultry Association 45th Edition Standard of Perfection in a place of honor. If some wayward god took their collection net and waded into the stream of bustling Academies students to collect a sample, my hope is that they’d find and classify a farm kid alongside the city slicker, an immigrant along with the fourth-generation American, the child of a minimum-wage worker along with the doctor’s son. From what I’ve seen of the school whose tests I spend my nights on, whose projects I tinker at on my bedroom floor, whose people are as varied and complex as any macroinvertebrate I found while waist-deep in that river…go on and plug us into the Shannon-Weiner index, because every organism in our ecosystem of knowledge has a role to play.

written by Norah McCormick 

edited by Srisha Nannapaneni