The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson … In seventh grade in Ohio, in the heartland of America and without ever actually seeing the ocean, I read Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. I had become very enamored in everything to do with water, but my experience was confined to freshwater in the streams, rivers and lakes of Ohio, Michigan and Canada.

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On May 16, Marine Estuarine and Environmental Sciences (MEES) students, faculty and alumni gathered in the newly renovated HJ Patterson Hall on the University of Maryland College Park campus in honor of Dr. Robert E. "Bob" Menzer. The occasion was the formal opening of the new Robert E. Menzer Classroom and Central Administration suite. Two state of the art electronic classrooms, offices, and conference room were unveiled.

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Don Boesch and I just completed teaching a course in Science for Environmental Management as part of the Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences graduate program. This course was taught using an inverted or ‘flipped’ classroom style for the first time. Don and I posted the readings as pdfs and the lectures as 10-15 min. Quicktime or YouTube videos ahead of the classtime.

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I traveled to Stony Brook University on Long Island for Christine O'Connell's dissertation defense at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SoMAS) on May 6. Christine presented the results of her survey on stakeholder perceptions of Long Island Sound. She did a wonderful job analyzing and teasing apart the survey results. It was clear that Connecticut people had a much keener interest in Long Island Sound than New Yorkers.

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People are part of a hybrid socio-environmental ecosystem. The debate over whether people should start geoengineering the atmosphere in order to prevent the worst effects of global warming ignores one essential fact - we already are geoengineering the atmosphere. Geoengineering is the deliberate effort to manipulate processes that control conditions in the atmosphere on a global scale.

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I attended the 6th Annual Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth meeting at the Dorchester County Historical Society on January 27. It was a good gathering of people who live on or near the streams, rivers and Chesapeake Bay of Dorchester County. Dorchester County has a lot of wetlands and streams, with abundant wildlife. The event featured local oysters on the half shell and goose meat. There were two skipjack captains in the audience as well.

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We held a Maryland Coastal Bays Science and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) meeting at Horn Point Laboratory this past week. We had several notable scientific findings revealed at this STAC meeting. One of the pressing environmental issues that we have struggled with over the past several years has been the somewhat inexplicable degradation in water quality in Chincoteague Bay.

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This blog details the question and answer period from the seminar given by Michael Douglas of the Charles Darwin University, at the IAN Seminar Series on September 27, 2012. Dougo answering questions during the discussion time. • What is being done to prepare for the projected 7mm sea level rise per year? • People are very concerned about the floodplain areas. There are many case studies already, which allow us to show the public the need to act now.

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We said good-bye to Drs. Michael Douglas (‘Dougo’) and Samantha Setterfield (‘Sam’) from Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia last week. Dougo and Sam joined the Integration and Application Network in August 2012 as part of their sabbatical. Dougo was in the U.S. as a Fulbright Scholar and he and Sam spent a couple of months at Oregon State University before coming to Maryland.

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I attended the biennial Within Our Reach conference, held on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, Oregon. The conference kicked off with a film night, "Willamette Through Film". Three short films were shown in a chronological sequence. The first film from 1939 was sponsored by the Isaac Walton League. They didn't have enough money for a soundtrack so it was a silent film. But Dr. Stan Gregory from Oregon State University provided an entertaining running commentary.

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