Last month I attended the 2017 Citizen Science Association Conference with Caroline and Alex, from May 17 to 19. The three-day biennial conference was hosted in Saint Paul, Minnesota at the RiverCentre. The conference proved to be very educational and thought-provoking, and I especially appreciated the opportunity to network with other members of the diverse and expanding citizen science community.

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The theme for the 2017 Gulf of Mexico Summit is “One Gulf” … The theme of the State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit this year in Houston was “One Gulf” and was all about synthesis of science to create positive restoration outcomes. I served on a panel with Mark Harwell and Jack Gentile to discuss our work on the Texas coast Report Card project, and our larger ambition for a Gulf of Mexico Report Card.

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After participating in the March for Science I was hesitant to join in on yet another march in the same week. The March for Science, while inspiring and exciting, was still a very cold, wet, and tiring day. But when I found out that my 86-year-old grandfather wanted to participate in the People’s Climate March, I couldn’t not go.

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In April I travelled to China with Michele Thieme and Judy Takats from the World Wildlife Fund U.S. (WWF). The trip was planned to discuss with WWF China whether our report card process would work within the Chinese context. It was my first trip to China, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I discovered was a truly different, yet amazing country with friendly people, great food and amazing sights (I’ll talk more about my trip to the Three Gorges Dam in a following blog).

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The 2017 annual meeting of the US chapter of the International Association of Landscape Ecologists was held in Baltimore at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Inner Harbor. Andrew Elmore, my University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science colleague, invited me to present the banquet keynote. Since any after dinner talk should not be all too serious, Andrew and I opted to develop an interactive session.

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“Let the data speak for themselves,” is a quote frequently attributed to Sir R. A. Fisher. Fisher was biologist who was drawn to the task of sifting through 70 years of data on crop yields and genetics accumulated at Rothamsted Experimental Station. The challenge of making sense of all this data led Fisher to develop a number of statistical tools that are used today by everyone who works with data.

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The cover of the 2016 Chesapeake Bay Report Card. Image credit:

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I recently wrote a blog entitled 'Practical visual literacy for science communication', and since narratives and visuals need to be combined for effective science communication, I felt that developing a narrative literacy was also important. The first three narrative literacy principles are derived from Randy Olson's excellent book "Houston, We Have a Narrative", discussed in a previous blog.

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In a paper titled "Visual literacy and science communication", published in the journal Science Communication in 1999, Jean Trumbo uses the writings of Leonardo da Vinci to introduce the concept of visual literacy. Da Vinci called his visualization process "sapere vedere", translated as "knowing how to see". Da Vinci was a master of drawing and sketching in addition to his more famous painting skills (e.g, Mona Lisa, The Last Supper).

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It was a cold and rainy day on Earth Day, April 22, when a contingent of Integration and Application Network (IAN) scientists headed to Washington, D.C. to join the March for Science. The rain couldn't dampen our spirits, as it was heartening to see so many people committed to supporting science. The highlight of the day for me was the camaraderie of the people we encountered throughout the day. Even the Capitol Police were very friendly and helpful.

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