Blog posts categorized by Environmental Report Cards
The view of Rio de Janeiro and Guanabara Bay from Sugarloaf Mountain.

Welcome to Rio! The Guanabara Bay first stakeholder workshop

Alexandra Fries ·
13 May 2016
Environmental Report Cards | 

Rio de Janeiro is a Brazilian State with vibrant cities (including the one with the same name) along the shore of Guanabara Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Guanabara Bay is highly impacted system due to a large population leading to sewage and trash pollution. The State of Rio and State of Maryland have a partnership of learning between their similar bays, Guanabara Bay and Chesapeake Bay, in order to promote opportunities for restoration to achieve economic, social, and environmental benefits.

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Wooden boats guide tourists on the Mekong River in search of Irrawaddy dolphins. Photo: Brianne Walsh

Talking report cards in Kratie, Cambodia

Brianne Walsh ·
9 May 2016
Environmental Report Cards | Science Communication | Applying Science | 

This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) In March, Simon Costanzo and I traveled to Cambodia for the third workshop in the Linked Indicators for Vital Ecosystem Services (LIVES) Project, an initiative of the Luc Hoffman Institute. This five-day workshop brought us to the province of Kratie, a five-hour drive north of the capital, Phnom Penh.

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The Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve Headquarters is located inside the The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute Campus in Port Aransas, Texas. Credit: richterarchitect.com (top) and K. Dunton/missionaransas.org (bottom)

Mission Aransas Pilot Project

Heath Kelsey ·
6 May 2016
Environmental Report Cards | Applying Science | Learning Science | 

The Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve Headquarters is located inside the The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute Campus in Port Aransas, Texas. Credit: richterarchitect.com (top) and K. Dunton/missionaransas.org (bottom) On April 27-28 I participated in another workshop related (indirectly) to the Texas Coast Report Card Pilot Project at Harte Research Institute in Corpus Christi Texas.

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NOAA Coastal Services Center. Credit: coast.noaa.gov

The NOAA Coral Reef Report Card - Reflections on the report card process

Heath Kelsey ·
29 April 2016
Environmental Report Cards | Science Communication | Applying Science | 

Caroline Donovan and I facilitated a mini-workshop in Charleston, South Carolina this week to advance the NOAA Coral Reef Monitoring Program Report Card Pilot projects in American Samoa and Florida. The meeting went very well – we had some difficult things to work out, and everyone came together to do just that.

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The WWF-UMCES Partnership is unique

A unique partnership between World Wildlife Fund and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Bill Dennison ·
15 April 2016
Environmental Report Cards | Science Communication | Applying Science | 

This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Don Boesch and I had lunch with our World Wildlife Fund colleagues Carter Roberts and Tom Dillon recently. Carter asked a question that a) we couldn’t answer immediately, and b) stimulated me to think about what makes our partnership unique.

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The five reporting regions for the Long Island Sound Report Card

How environmental report cards can democratize science

Bill Dennison ·
16 March 2016
Environmental Report Cards | Science Communication | 

This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) The word democracy has its origins in a Greek word from the 5th century B.C. Democracy is formed by combining "demos" meaning "the people" with "kratia" meaning "power". Literally translated as power by the people, democracy is the foundation of the modern western political systems.

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Andrew Elmore's illustration on how to measure altitude.

Using report cards to get the synoptic big picture: An astronaut's view

Bill Dennison ·
10 March 2016
Environmental Report Cards | Science Communication | Applying Science | 

This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between theWorld Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) One of the attributes of report cards that is particularly useful is the ability to view a whole system synoptically. We often refer to this synoptic view as analogous to flying over at a high altitude.

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