As part of a field check for the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, fellow science communicator Ann Foo and I made a trip out to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to observe a water monitoring sampling day with an incredibly knowledgeable set of volunteers. Upon learning that I had never visited the refuge before, the volunteers suggested that we spend some time on Wildlife Drive before we left, so Ann and I headed out to do a quick loop after sampling was finished.

One of my favorite weeks of the year is “Fat Bear Week,” hosted by Katmai National Park. This is a March Madness-style bracket of, you guessed it, fat bears as they prepare for winter hibernation in Alaska. For the last 11 years, the National Park Service has promoted their popular brown bears in this week-long contest to crown the king or queen of the falls. If you haven’t checked out the Brooks Falls live stream, I’d highly recommend it.

On a sunny Thursday in July, over 40 community members throughout the greater Frederick County in Maryland participated in the very first Potomac Watershed Open House.