The Integration and Application Network annual retreat was held at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center on Kent Narrows on May 31. Two dozen IAN staff spent the day introducing themselves to each other, discussing the IAN report card and the IAN brand. This annual gathering includes our University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Chesapeake Bay Program staff (UMCES@CBP).

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In April I travelled to China to discuss report cards with WWF China. Following the workshop (outlined in a previous blog), I was extremely lucky to be taken on a guided tour of the Three Gorges Dam that spans the Yangzte River in Hubei Province. Now this ain’t just any dam, it’s the biggest hydroelectricity generating dam in the world with a capacity of 85 terrawatt hours per year, or a 10th of China’s whole energy budget! Can you imagine?!

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Last June 5-9, 2017, I was fortunate enough to be selected to participate in SESYNC’s short course on Social Network Analysis (SNA) taught by Lorien Jasny, PhD, who was a postdoc at SESYNC but is now based at Exeter University in the UK. This introduction and crash course on Social Network Analysis was a great opportunity for me, as I will be using SNA in my dissertation research.

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The WWF-UMCES Partnership met at the UMCES Horn Point Lab Campus in Cambridge, MD on May 24 and 25 this year for our annual two-day retreat. This year’s agenda was, as usual, very ambitious, including the introduction of new people, discussions on branding the partnership, the incorporation of climate change indicators into the report card process, modeling for scenario development, and reviews of upcoming communication products.

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During the week of May 15th, I traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota, to attend and present at the 2017 Citizen Science Association Conference. Alex Fries and Suzi Spitzer from IAN also attended the conference. Check out Suzi’s awesome blogs on the conference. St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota and adjoins Minneapolis, which is the largest city in Minnesota. While the combined St. Paul-Minneapolis population is 3.52 million (Wikipedia), St.

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On April 24th, 2017, Dave Nemazie and I began our journey to Rio de Janeiro. Little did we know, instead of taking 18 hours to get there, it would take 30. We flew through JFK, and a delayed flight meant we missed our connection to Rio. After spending the day in New York, we finally arrived a day after we were supposed to. Despite our travel woes, we made it to Rio and had productive meetings with our partners, Guido Gelli and Marlus Newton.

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In a previous blog, I suggested six elements for science synthesis that we have employed in the Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Synthesis (SAV SYN) effort. These six elements were the following: • Experienced leadership … • Limited size … • Multiple immersive workshops … • Regular communication … • Flexibility … • Product focus … I also discussed the following enabling conditions:

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During the month of April, I had an opportunity to present at Scientific Literacy: A conference for reform-minded science educators, hosted by graduate students at the University of Rochester Warner School of Education.

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We recently gathered the submerged aquatic vegetation synthesis team (SAV SYN) at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Annapolis office. This fourth and final working group meeting was convened to make progress on our two remaining publications, using Structural Equation Modeling (led by Jon Lefcheck) and seagrass trait analysis (led by Chris Patrick). The other major effort was to develop a segment analysis of SAV trends, drivers and factors affecting projections.

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'How’s the Beach?' is an app that presents health advisories to the public about bacterial levels in Myrtle Beach, SC and Sarasota Beach, FL. The University of South Carolina and IAN are collaborating to expand the scope of this app to include popular waterways and shellfish harvesting sites around the Charleston Harbor.

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