Science Serving Communities: Advancing Climate Resilience in Maryland
On January 5th, Katie May and Conor attended the Science Serving Communities Workshop at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at College Park. This event was an opportunity to learn about a new effort from a UMD research team. This effort will meaningfully engage local communities to get them the data they need to better prepare for climate change. This is an exciting and much needed project. The project is being led by Tim Canty, Director of Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences, whose work compliments ongoing resiliency projects at IAN. The productive conversations held during the workshop have already led to follow up meetings on ways that IAN can support and collaborate on these efforts.
ConversatIANS with Ed Sheldon
In January, we started an informal seminar series called ConversatIANS and hosted our first guest speaker, Ed Sheldon, on January 11th. Ed is a citizen scientist and leader of the nonprofit Fenit Coast Conservation (FCC) in Ireland. Ed spoke about his efforts to collect seagrass data along Ireland’s coast and led an interactive discussion about mapping the seagrasses and how these efforts could be enhanced. Ed is also a colleague of Jon Lefcheck and Katie May Laumann and hosted them last year for presentations in Ireland.
First science communication course of 2024
The REEF School Science Communication Course occurred on January 12th at IMET. The course was led by Roshni Nair, Sidney Anderson, and Nathan Miller and discussed the fundamentals of communicating research through the help of visual aids, ABT (And, But, Therefore) Statements, and design principles such as color theory and layout organization techniques. The students then pitched their business ideas to the instructors and got feedback about their communication skills from the instructors and peers.
Environmental justice stories through cinema
We collaborated with IMET and the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative (EJJI) for a film screening and panel discussion as part of IMET’s Winter Series on January 24th. The screening featured two films: Eroding History by André Chung, focusing on two Black communities in Deal Island, MD, grappling with sea level rise and cultural preservation amid climate change, and Disruption: Baltimore’s Highway to Nowhere by Sean Yoes, detailing the impact of Highway 40 on Baltimore's Black community. The panel, moderated by Amanda Phillips de Lucas, director of the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, provided a great opportunity for the audience to engage with the filmmakers.
COAST Card goes to India
The COAST Card project is gearing up for its third international meeting, set to take place in Goa, India, from February 5th to 8th. This collaborative project brings together experts from the United States, the Philippines, India, Japan, and Norway. Following the successful hosting of project partners by the Philippines and Japan last year, this meeting promises to provide another invaluable opportunity for participants to connect with project collaborators, visit key study sites, and advance toward achieving the project's goals.