Imagine a well-established family of adults planning a big family reunion abroad, fantastic right? Everyone has their own ideas about where to go, what to do, and how to get there to have an enjoyable vacation. How can you bring all these voices together to plan the ultimate trip that satisfies everyone's desires?

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As scientists, we often think about the role we play in environmental management. But what about scientific advice? How do we provide effective scientific advice that allows for studying and solving environmental problems? A science policy advisor is one that provides others with scientific information in order to support decision making and push for public policy implementation. Who are these decision makers?

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Food, fuel, shelter, and clothing, the four basic human needs,8 can be ordered to your door with the click of a button. In a consumer based society, it can be hard to remember the human connection to nature. The western conservation and environmental movements aim to remind people of our role in nature and to envision more sustainable management.

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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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