Hao Wang and Ana Sosa … On Friday, May 5th, MEES students in the Science for Environmental Management class traveled from multiple campuses across the state to gather in Annapolis at the UMCES IAN office. For our last session of the course, we each gave an oral environmental science briefing that was related to a specific management topic of our choice. During the class we staged a simulated meeting:

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Stephanie Barletta and Hao Wang … Look at how far you’ve come and how much you’ve done! Look back at yourself with pride, look to your future with hope - but most importantly - it's time to celebrate! Celebrate with your friends, family, loved ones, and most importantly, with your future employers! (Wait- what?

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Annie Carew and Qiurui Zhu … We’ve spent a lot of time this semester discussing the intersection between science and the public - how can we communicate the importance and urgency of our science without alarming or confusing people? This week, we discussed environmental report cards, which could provide a solution to this tricky balancing act facing scientists. There are several organizations that write and publish environmental report cards.

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Hadley McIntosh and Ginni La Rosa … Scientists are not just scientists. We often work at the intersection of science, communication, policy, and law. Scientists deal with law in contracts, intellectual property rights, and privacy disputes, but we are also needed to provide evidence and testimony in judicial rulings.

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Juliet Nagel and Kavya Pradhan … Ask a scientist, and they might tell you that journalists are more interested in selling news than getting a story right, are overly concerned with conflict and scientific outliers, and will miss the point or twist information to fit a headline.

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Qiurui Zhu and Juliet Nagel … Climate change and its impacts on the environment and human well-being are getting more and more attention worldwide. The Paris Agreement aims to bring all nations into the combat with climate change and has set an ambitious goal: keeping the global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century (and preferably aiming even lower, below a 1.5 degree Celsius increase).

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Ana Sosa and Jake Shaner … Last week, students in the Science for Environmental Management class took part in an activity, during which class members acted as decision makers and other participating parties in “scenario plays” where science advising was necessary. The goal of this exercise was to determine the best ways to manage our professional roles as both scientists and advisers in decision making.

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Dylan Taillie and Annie Carew … This past week in our Science for Environmental Management class, students read about three case studies on large, complex ecosystems: New York Harbor, the Mississippi Deltaic Plain and the Great Barrier Reef. The case studies that we discussed are vastly different systems that span the world. (Photos:

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Ginni La Rosa and Katie Martin … Last Friday, February 3rd, UMCES students in the Science for Environmental Management class from multiple campuses across the state gathered together at the IAN synthesis office in Annapolis to speak with two experienced practitioners on the frontier of science and policy decisions. Ben Grumbles was confirmed as Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment by the Maryland State Senate two years ago, after nomination by Governor Larry Hogan.

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Katie Martin and Hadley McIntosh … In J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Wendy, Neverland is a fantastical land—an escape from passing time and reality1. Is returning to the Chesapeake Bay of old with lower turbidity and nutrient levels and a seemingly unlimited oyster and crab harvest an equally unrealistic fantasy? The "Return to Neverland" scenario, coined by Duarte, Conley, Carstensen, and Sánchez-Camacho in "Return to Neverland:

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