IAN releases its self-appraising report card
IAN released its 2018 report card. In the annual IAN Report Card, IAN staff reflect back on accomplishments from 2018. The self-assessment is based on indicators in three categories: social impacts, ecological outcomes, and partner engagement. Overall, IAN received an overall grade of B (86%) which is an improvement from the 2017 score of B- (81%). Click here to read the full report card and learn more about the projects IAN Staff worked on in 2018!
IAN attended Horn Point Laboratory's Open House
UMCES's Horn Point Laboratory hosted its annual open house, in which hundreds of visitors were given the opportunity to tour parts of the lab, such as the oyster hatchery and the research vessel Rachel Carson, and interact with HPL staff and students. IAN had a booth at the Open House, where we showed visitors some of our report card and graphic design products, and challenged them to test their knowledge of Chesapeake Bay ecology in our quiz game. Topics covered by the game included runoff, TMDL, SAV recovery, and bacterial contamination. IAN staff members Nathan Miller, Annie Carew, Max Hermanson, Heath Kelsey, and Bill Dennison took turns manning the booth and interacting with HPL visitors of all ages. You can read more about our Open House experience in a blog post written by Nathan Miller.
International Riversymposium in Australia
The International RiverSymposium in Brisbane, Australia this year focused on the Resilient Rivers Blueprint, which is a great direction for us at IAN. Bill Dennison, Heath Kelsey and Simon Costanzo participated this year, presenting on the Lake Erie, Kafue River, Tuul River Report Card projects, respectively. We also facilitated a 3-hour Learn, Inspire, Transform (LIT) session, in which we played SNAP, and followed up with a role playing session where participants advocated for their individual interests at first. Midway through the session, a flood occurred that forced participants to think about the system in a different, holistic way. Participants devised ways to work together to advance multiple interests, and to achieve a resilient river.
Belmont Forum Newsletters released
Convened by the Belmont Forum and facilitated by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the Belmont Tripartite Valorization workshop and Biodiversity I CRA virtual synthesis workshop served as the end term meeting for the Food Security and Land Use Change Collaborative Research Action (CRA), Biodiversity I CRA, and mid-term meetings for the Arctic Observing and Science for Sustainability and Mountains as Sentinels of Change CRAs. The Workshop reports, Understanding Responses to Global Change, and Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, provide a brief overview of each project, identify common themes that emerged, and provide recommendations for future Belmont Forum Projects.
November: IAN Report Card workshop at the Chesapeake Watershed Forum
This year's Chesapeake Watershed Forum, hosted by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay in West Virginia, will feature a workshop led by IAN staff entitled: "Expanding the Chesapeake Bay Report Card."
International Seagrass Biology Workshop 2020
In August 2020, IAN will be hosting the fourteenth biennial International Seagrass Biology Workshop (ISBW14) in Annapolis, Maryland. The theme of the conference is "Signs of Success: Reversing the Course of Seagrass Degradation." Visit the ISBW14 website for more information.