Throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, volunteer monitoring groups collect and assess important water quality and benthic macroinvertebrate data. Thanks to the hard work of the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative, many valuable resources, including methods manuals and factsheets, provide groups guidance in ensuring the quality-and therefore value-of their data.

Every fall, the American Geophysical Union hosts the largest meeting of Earth and space scientists from around the world for a week of workshops, presentations, field trips, networking events, and so much more. Rumored to have had more than 27,000 attendees this year, it’s an impressively large and exciting conference, overflowing with opportunities to learn, share, and network.

View of Downtown Seattle from the waterfront. Photo credit: Yesenia Valverde. Last month, the IPCC released its special report, Global Warming of 1.5°C , a report requested by the Paris Agreement to detail the projected impacts of a 1.5°C rise in global temperature. It is of crucial importance to note that, according to the report, we as a global society are not currently on track to maintain warming below 1.5°C. Sobering, the report is an immediate call to action.

Just fifteen minutes past the Bay Bridge, nestled within the sanctuary of Prospect Bay on the Eastern Shore, lies the idyllic Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center--a perfect setting for this year’s IAN staff retreat. Last Wednesday, staff members--coming from Cambridge, Annapolis, and even Rochester, NY--made the trip to the CBEC for the annual tradition of team-building and workshopping as part of an ever-ongoing effort to improve IAN.