The “citizen science” component—that is, research and data collection by amateur enthusiasts—is key to the X-Stream Science program, says Nathalie Stanley Olson.

To date, Battle River Watershed Alliance staff and more than 100 students from six partnering schools have tested 10 locations in the Battle River watershed for water quality and biological integrity.

The X-Stream Science experience includes a half-day field trip to a spot on the Battle River, or one of the creeks that feeds into it, to make note of insect life, and test water for pH, conductivity, turbidity and levels of dissolved oxygen.

“This is experiential education. You can’t just tell people they should care about the environment. We need to give people an experience that forms a relationship, and then they will want to care,” says program architect Nathalie Stanley Olson.

To date, X-Stream Science staff and students have discovered plenty of invertebrates, including damselflies, fresh-water shrimp, midges, aquatic worms, dragonflies, water mites and dobsonflies.

In the spring of 2017, the X-Stream Science program made an incredible find—a tadpole shrimp. It’s an ancient creature—it hasn’t changed much since the Triassic period, and it’s very rare in our watershed,” says Olson. “One University of Alberta biologist told me: ‘I thought I had seen one here in the 1980s, but I had no evidence . . . and I’ve never heard of one here since.’ ”