Natalie Yee and Rachel Eberius … Social networks are not just places where we post photos or share updates on our lives. They can be described more broadly to include a series of social interactions and personal relationships. We explored this other definition in class as it related to our work and personal interactions within the class.

Read more

Rebecca Wenker and Wilmelie Cruz Marrero … After spending a few classes discussing what coupled systems actually are, how they are created, used, managed, and maintained, and various examples of successes and failures, this week we moved onto a topic that has long struck fear into the hearts of students - assessment. More specifically, we delved into how to evaluate coupled systems based on the assessment of their natural and cultural resources.

Read more

Rachel Eberius, Krystal Yhap, Suzi Spitzer … Man’s tendency to overharvest and exhaust communal goods was first recognized in Garret Harding’s classic 1968 article The Tragedy of the Commons . It is our nature, Harding believed, to act in a rational, self-serving manner and because of this tendency we will inevitably deplete communal environmental resources.

Read more

Noelle Olsen … Last week for class, we traveled near and far (UMES students) to the new UMCES office in Annapolis. Dr. Hubacek gave us an interactive, crash-course lesson in natural resource management and economics by playing the game, Fish Banks. Fish banks originated from the minds of scientists at the MIT Sloan School of Management and centers around environmental sustainability and systems thinking - perfect for our coupled natural and human systems course.

Read more

Suzi Spitzer and Noelle Olsen … This semester, we will be publishing a series of synthesis blogs written by graduate students enrolled in a new course called “Coupled Human and Natural Systems.” The class is the foundation-level course of Environment and Society, a new academic track within the MEES graduate program at UMCES.

Read more