'Environmental literacy' series … The seven environmental literacy principles for the Upper Mississippi River are the following: • The Upper Mississippi River is regulated with a series of locks and dams, extending from St. Louis, IL to Minneapolis, MN. • The Upper Mississippi River watershed includes forests and lakes in the northern regions and corn/soy croplands in the southern regions.

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The 2013 Chesapeake Bay report card provides an important insight into how stormwater runoff affects the Bay. The contrast between the Upper Eastern Shore report card scores which are degrading over time versus the James River report card scores which are improving over time provides important insights. Both regions experienced intense rainfall in 2013, yet the report card scores responded differently.

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As a follow up to the Arkansas/Red River workshop in Tulsa, OK where we facilitated a workshop associated with the development of a Mississippi River report card, five of us traveled to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Nickel Preserve in Eastern Oklahoma. Jordy Jordahl, the Executive Director of America's Watershed Initiative, Patrick Brennan, the Sustainability Manager from Ingram Barge, along with me, Heath Kelsey and Bill Nuttle from the IAN team comprised the report card strategy group.

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As part of our continuing series of stakeholder expert workshops for developing a Mississippi River basin report card, a team of IAN Science Integrators and Science Communicators traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma on 14-15 May 2014. Heath Kelsey, Bill Nuttle, Bill Dennison, Caroline Wicks, and Brianne Walsh. Anthony Kung, the visiting graduate student from the University of Queensland, came along as an observer as well.

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On May 11, replicas of two of the three ships that Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean were at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland. These replicas of the Niña and the Pinta were made using authentic materials and constructed with historically appropriate tools. The Columbus Foundation sails these ships to different port calls as "floating museums".

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'Environmental literacy' series … The seven environmental literacy principles for the Ohio River basin are the following: • The Ohio River is the major eastern tributary of the Mississippi River, traversing through a diversity of landscapes. • The Ohio River is the major water source of the Mississippi River, with its flow regulated through a series of locks and dams.

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IAN was lucky enough to be invited to Charleston, South Carolina, to conduct a science communication course for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC). Together with Jane Thomas, Brianne Walsh and Jane Hawkey, we had two wonderful days in the warm South, and were even greeted by an alligator on the lawn outside our hotel when we arrived. We were then greeted by a much more pleasant host, Amber Von Harten, who is the outreach specialist for SAFMC.

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On May 1-2, we held our annual UMCES faculty convocation- this year's convocation was hosted by Horn Point Laboratory. Our guest speaker was Bill Chameides, the Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. The focus of this year's convocation was 'The future of graduate education at UMCES', as we have a new joint program and are in the midst of a curriculum revision for the multi-campus Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences program.

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'Scientists who made a difference' series … This blog accompanying the biographical sketch of Johannes Kepler looks at a selection of his writing as poetry and a selection of his scientific sketches as art. The 'Poetry' use Kepler's exact words (translated into English) in prose form, using the title 'Absolutely Settled' to focus on the cadence and word choice. It was a strong statement in support of the Copernican view of the earth and planets revolving around the sun.

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I visited the late Peter Oliver (1957-2012) following his retirement lecture in Brisbane, Australia in August 2012. I stayed with Peter and his wife Ann in their home in Maleny and when Peter was feeling well enough, we would work together on our book 'Dancing with Dugongs: Having fun and developing a practical environmental philosophy for teaching and research'.

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