In a partnership with the Maryland state government, the Chesapeake Bay. This website (chesapeakebaystory.umces.edu) uses water quality, fisheries and habitat data, various maps and graphs, and scientific publications to inform a narrative version of the historical trends of Chesapeake Bay health. The website describes various ecosystem health indicators, and displays annual maps and graphs using a slider bar on a timeline, as well as a map grid which displays summary maps for every year.

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I attended a two-day workshop on January 13-14 held at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. It was organized by Tom Horton and Karl Blankenship and sponsored by Town Creek Foundation and the Bay Journal. Roughly 150 people gathered for these two days to talk about an issue that we generally do not talk about regarding Chesapeake Bay: population growth. Population growth has been an issue that Tom Horton, the prolific Chesapeake author and activist, has been advocating for some time.

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One of the important decisions in developing environmental report cards is choosing the reporting region boundaries. In addition to defining the overall extent of the report card coverage, defining the reporting regions within this coverage is crucial.

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Seagrass science was largely influenced by the seminal book "Seagrass of the World", written by Cornelis den Hartog in 1970. Professor den Hartog is a spritely Dutch botanist, now in his 80s, who also was the founding editor of the journal Aquatic Botany in 1975. This 270 pp. book was published by North-Holland Publishing Co.

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As part of our involvement in the New York Harbor. I read "The Great Bridge: The epic story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge" by David McCollough. It was a wonderful read, providing historical context and delving into the fascinating story of the three Roeblings who were key to the effort:

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In the spring of 2014, Charles Darwin University in Australia's Northern Territory signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that allows us to exchange staff for extended periods. The goal is to increase our shared capacity for synthesis and communication of river and coastal management science. To begin flexing the cooperative spirit of the MOU, I will be traveling to Darwin (with family in tow) this January 2015 for about 3+ months.

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There are many changes ahead in 2015, including new leadership in academia, government and science, management strategies for the 2014 Chesapeake Watershed Agreement, a major Conowingo research effort, and new staffing at the Chesapeake Bay Program. Academic leadership. The Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, Brit Kirwin, is retiring after his distinguished tenure and his successor has been named, Bob Caret.

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Often the focus on science communication is the data visualization or the words or phrases chosen about a topic. But another important aspect of communicating science, both informally and formally is the use of hand drawn sketches. These sketches can be very simple black and white lines to complex color drawings. These sketches can be created using a stick to draw something in the dirt or sand, or chalkboards and whiteboards, or modern tablets and computers that have drawing applications.

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ADDENDUM … This blog was posted three weeks ago on Christmas Day, and since that time I have received extreme praise as well as extreme condemnation. I was striving for neither of these reactions. For those people who felt that this parody was in poor taste or felt that it was an affront to them, I apologize. It was intended as a whimsical parody of a holiday favorite.

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Alex Fries and I traveled to Brunswick, Georgia to facilitate a workshop on a coastal Georgia report card for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Coastal Resources Division. Where is Brunswick, Georgia, you ask? Brunswick is approximately 1 hour north of Jacksonville, FL off the I-95 corridor. Caroline Donovan facilitating the workshop (top) and the workshop participants working on conceptual diagrams (bottom).

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