Clean Water Celebration
April 20, 2026 marks another Clean Water Celebration at the Peoria Civic Center. This annual event has been happening since 1994. I will be presenting sessions as part of the STREAM. These are “round robin” sessions lasting roughly 20 minutes. Sessions run from 9:45 until 10:45 (3 sessions), 11 – 12 (3 sessions), and 12:30 – 1:30 (3 sessions).
My sessions are titled “Bugs Under Water! Exploring Aquatic Insects.”
Want to learn more about the life and diversity of aquatic insects? Want to see examples from central Illinois? This is your chance to interact with a professional entomologist. Be careful! You might learn something about the small wonders which run our world!
In addition to bringing a number of pinned specimens from my personal insect collection, I plan to discuss how one can determine the health of an aquatic environment using the insects one encounters. As time permits, we ill also discuss life history along with interesting facts about Illinois aquatic insects.
As classes arrive, I plan to have one or both of these interactive web pages available to start our discussions.
- Bugs Underwater flyer (for possible display on larger screen)
- Aquatic Insect Fun Facts (this web page will randomly display a statement and associated information concerning Illinois aquatic insects). This link will open in a new browser tab.
- Clean Water Quiz (this web page asks visitors to indicate whether a given insect is an indicator of a clean aquatic ecosystem or a polluted aquatic ecosystem). Materials are presented at random and students will have plenty of opportunity to discuss what they encounter.