Wetlands vital to breeding waterfowl in the glaciated prairie of north central North America are being degraded and destroyed at a rapid rate. Preservation of these unique aquatic systems is dependent, in part, on a technology that enables identification of their critical components. Investigations of feeding ecology and wetland use by breeding Anatinae in North Dakota [USA] have demonstrated the importance of shallow wetlands and the invertebrates that they produce. The column sampler described in this paper is lightweight (2.5 kg), quantitative, relatively simple to construct and designed to operate in shallow water. This device, when used in combination with other gear designed to sample invertebrates attached to vascular plants, will provide a quantitative estimate of aquatic invertebrates associated with shallow prairie wetlands.