Is it time to rethink our 19th century approach to dealing with human waste? The discovery of the cause of a cholera epidemic in London, in the mid 19th century, unleashed an international movement that improved sanitation in cities, and also altered the relationship between people and the environment. The result has been an increase in living standards.

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A new special issue on Water Education for Sustainability in Higher Education in the Journal for Contemporary Water Research & Education was published, an outcome of a workshop organized by the International WaterCentre. The special issue is dedicated to Dr. Peter Oliver, an educator who passed away last November. The special issue includes a tribute to Peter and two papers (1, 2) that he and I co-authored.

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As one of the outputs of the Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis workshop on "Australian seagrass habitats: Condition and threats", I composed a song which Kieryn Kilminster from Western Australia Department of Water was able to convince her husband, Gary Cox, to set to music and then record.

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The concept of environmental literacy derives from a series of programs that have established various literacy principles, for example, ocean literacy and Chesapeake Bay literacy. These distillations attempt to identify the essence of what an informed person needs to know. The literacy principles form the overall outline presented here, but it is in the richness of examples, stories and visual supporting materials that bring the literacy alive. European Space Agency).

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The steady rise in the number of people who have registered and downloaded the IAN symbol and image libraries has continued since they were first posted online in 2003. The number of users is currently in excess of 75,000 people, from all 50 U.S. states and virtually every country in the world.

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Standing on the coral rubble of a small cay in the Great Barrier Reef (Lady Elliot Island) is a biophilia experience. Biophilia, defined as 'love of life', is an appreciation that everything that you see and touch on the coral cay is created from living things.

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I participated in a week long seagrass working group meeting at the Moreton Bay Research Station on North Stradbroke Island. The working group meeting was sponsored by the Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (ACEAS) modeled after the U.S.-based National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS). ACEAS is run by Associate Professor Alison Specht and is part of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), chaired by Professor Andrew Campbell.

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On March 18th and 19th, nine teachers and principals traveled from the far corners of the Australian continent to join the U.S.--Australia Virtual Environmental Partnership. The workshop was held in a very nice conference facility at the Sinclair Knight Merz headquarters in the Southbank area of Brisbane. SKM is a large multinational consulting company specializing in water related issues, and Simon Costanzo, IAN Science Integrator worked at SKM immediately prior to joining IAN.

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Conceptual diagrams are 'thought drawings' that use symbols to convey meaningful ecological information. The IAN symbol library was created in order that more people would be able to produce conceptual diagrams. Between the Marine Botany Group at the University of Queensland and the IAN team, the Science Communicators have produced over a thousand conceptual diagrams that have been used in scientific papers, books, newsletters, fact sheets, posters, and websites.

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New ways of looking at data promise to give a clearer picture of the effects of restoration in the ecosystem. People have worked hard to bring the Chesapeake Bay back to health. Yet, why is it so difficult to see the results? The IAN program’s Chesapeake Bay Report Card for 2011 gives the bay a D+.

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