As part of our Belmont Forum synthesis workshop, we sang a song at the end of each day. At the end of the first day after we had listened to the descriptions of diverse and fascinating projects, it was quite apparent that we were dealing with real research stars. This led to the adaptation of the 1999 song "All Star" (Music video) by the rock band Smash Mouth. Heath Kelsey and Martin LeTissier, my fellow workshop facilitators, were good sports about the disparaging lyrics attributed to them.

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Participants at the San Francisco Belmont Forum Workshop … Bill Dennison, Vanessa Vargas, and I traveled to San Francisco, California from 10 to 12 of December 2016 to help our partners Martin LeTissier, and Shona Paterson at Future Earth’s Coasts, to facilitate a meeting of a select group of Belmont Forum project leaders.

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On December 6th to 7th 2016, Heath Kelsey and I represented the Integration and Application Network (IAN) at the 2nd International Marine Science Communication Conference (CommOcean) in Bruges, Belgium. The conference took place at the Provincial Court on the Market Square in the heart of the medieval Bruges, a historic UNESCO heritage site. It was my first trip to Europe, and my first conference to attend as both an IAN graduate student and session speaker.

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Last weekend I attended a workshop that gave me a different perspective on communicating through story telling and on the stories that scientists tell among ourselves. The workshop was Building Skills for Change put on by the Institute for Change Leaders. Olivia Chow, who led the workshop, is well-known in Canada for her work in municipal and national politics. Currently, she is a professor in the School of Social Work at Ryerson University where the institute is located.

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The 2016 Upper Mississippi River Basin Conference in Moline, Illinois had a special theme of “Raising the Grade” this year, which was shaped by the Mississippi River Watershed Report Card which UMCES developed with America’s Watershed Initiative last year. The Upper Mississippi River got a “C” grade in the report card, and although the grade was the highest of all the basins, it is not good enough in the eyes of the regional stakeholders.

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The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Basin Report Card Initiative (BRCI) partnership visited Monterrey Mexico to attend the opening of the Water Center at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, and to meet with the FEMSA foundation and Water Center about the potential for report cards for the Rio Bravo, Rio Conchos, and Monterrey areas…

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In 2014 IAN visited India to help the Ministry of Environment and Forests develop the Chilika Lake Report Card in Odisha, and a Report Card for the Jamnagar Marine National Park and a Cumulative Environmental Impact Assessment for the Gulf of Kachchh in Gujarat. Report cards developed for India … This time we are back to Odisha, to Bhitarkanika National Park, in the northern part of the state.

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On October 13th, Caroline Donovan and I traveled to Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA for the Prioritization Workshop. This workshop was held as part of the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC) project that UMCES is a partner of as well as Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Izaak Walton League of America, and the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM). The workshop was hosted by ALLARM at Dickinson College.

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"Growing governance in Guanabara Bay" (Portuguese translation by João Paulo Coimbra) Em 4 de Outubro, Dave Nemazie e eu viajamos para o Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, para a terceira sessão de reuniões para o desenvolvimento do Boletim de Saúde Ambiental da Baía de Guanabara.

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On October 4th, Dave Nemazie and I traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the third set of meetings to work on the Guanabara Bay Report Card. We presented the draft report card and report card website at the INEA (State Environmental Institute) offices to Andre Correa, the Secretary of the Environment for the State of Rio. On October 5th, we met with the secretary and his cabinet as well as other groups working on Guanabara Bay Restoration.

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