Baltimore Ecosystem Study Annual Meeting October 19-20, 2011

Members, Collaborators and Friends of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study:

You are invited and encouraged to attend the 2011 Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) Long-Term Ecological Research Program Annual Meeting on 19-20 October and the Community Open House and Greening Celebration on 19 October.

The Annual Meeting is designed to share the technical scientific results of the project with BES researchers, educators, local, state and federal agency representatives while also being open to the media, and interested community members. The Community Open House is an informal venue to share non-technical project information and results with teachers, students at all grade levels, community members, media, and regional decision makers.

Annual Meeting:

The thirteenth BES Annual Meeting will be held at the Cylburn Arboretum Vollmer Visitor Center at 4915 Greenspring Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21209. Here is a link to Directions.

The Annual Meeting will start at 8:30 am on Wednesday, beginning with talks by researchers. After lunch there will be a poster session followed by afternoon talks. The Community Open House will begin at 6:00 pm. The Thursday session will begin at 8:30 am with talks, ending at noon.

Those who have scientific results gathered as a part of, or particularly relevant to, the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, are invited to present a 15 minute talk or a poster summarizing the results. If you would like to present your research at the meeting, please submit your 250-word abstract by Friday 7 October. The abstracts will be published on the BES website. You can include one graphic or table with your abstract. Please submit your abstracts electronically using the online form here. This is a strict deadline, so be sure your abstract reaches us by 7 October.

The final program of talks and posters will be posted via the web at beslter.org shortly before the meeting.

Annual Meeting Parking:

There is free parking available at the Arboretum.

Annual Meeting Meals:

Coffee will be available for all attendees. Pre-paid breakfast and lunch will be available onsite on the first day and breakfast on the second day. Time allotted for lunch will be one hour. We encourage you to register and pay for your meals in advance. There will be very few extra meals available if you sign up at the door. You can also bring a bag lunch. Options for local dining close by are limited. The costs below are to cover your food and drink. There is no fee to attend the meeting.

The options are:

Breakfast Day 1: $ 8.50

Lunch Day 1: $12.50

Breakfast and Lunch Day 1: $21.00

Breakfast Day 2: $ 8.50

Breakfast both days and Lunch Day 1: $29.50

Descriptions of the meals are included on the registration form.   Updated information can be reached on the main BES website page, http://beslter.org.  The direct link  is http://beslter.org/bes_am_asp_2011/bes_am_reg_intro.html .

You can either pay by credit card through the registration form or by check payable to "Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies." Checks should be mailed to Holly Beyar, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, PO Box AB, Millbrook, NY 12545. You will be given tickets for your pre-paid meals along with your name tag when you arrive at the meeting.

Meeting Registration:

All Annual Meeting attendees and participants will need to register by Wednesday 12 October. The online registration form is available here. If you have any questions, please contact Holly Beyar at (845) 677-7600 x210 or beyarh@caryinstitute.org

Community Open House and Greening Celebration:

The tenth Community Open House and Greening Celebration will follow the Annual Meeting on Wednesday evening 19 October from 6:00 to 9:00 pm at the Cylburn Arboretum Vollmer Visitor Center.

The Community Open House and Annual Greening Celebration is a joint gathering by BES and the Parks and People Foundation. This event highlights community involvement in various greening activities such as community gardens. It is also an opportunity for community members to meet and talk with BES researchers in a less formal setting to learn more about BES. The event will feature non-technical displays and handouts. Please contact Mary L. Washington at Parks & People, 410-448-5663 x107 or mary.washington@parksandpeople.org, with any questions about the Open House, or if you would like to submit a non-technical poster or other display.

I encourage all participants and collaborators in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study to present a talk or poster at the Annual Meeting, as well as to attend the Open House in order to promote communication and mutual understanding in this spatially, topically, and institutionally very diverse study.

Sincerely,

Steward T.A. Pickett,

Project Director

Baltimore Ecosystem Study Eco-'Zine Contest

What is a ‘Zine?

Short for “magazine,” a ‘Zine is a short illustrative booklet or pamphlet that sends a message to its readers. It can be devoted to any topic and can come in many shapes and sizes.

Instructions on making a Zine: http://smallsciencezines.blogspot.com

Contest theme: TreeBaltimore

What is your vision for TreeBaltimore?

Prizes! Four 1st prizes of $75.00, Four Honorable Mentions of $50.00.

Show us by creating an original ‘Zine and submitting it to the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Eco-‘Zine Contest! TreeBaltimore is a Baltimore City sponsored program which strives to increase the urban tree canopy by planting and preserving trees in our city. For more information, visit www.baltimorecity.gov and search for ‘TreeBaltimore.’

To Submit a ‘Zine:

• Artist must be a K-12 student in a Baltimore City or County public or private school
• ‘Zines must be submitted by September 30, 2011
• Winners announced on October 19, 2011 at the Parks & People Foundation’s Community Greening Celebration
• All ‘Zines must be submitted with: name, phone number, address, school name, and grade.
• Submit to Bess Caplan at: 800 Wyman Park Dr., Ste. 010, Baltimore, MD, 21211 or caplanb@caryinstitute.org

Here is the link to download the flyer:

http://www.beslter.org/zine/bes-e-zine-contest-flyer-2011-06-06.pdf

1000 Publications for BES

The 1000th publication was just entered into the End Note library of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study.  It was an In-press entry of Steve Raciti's journal article, "Nitrate production and availability in residential soils," soon to be published in Ecological Applications.  Congratulations Steve and co-authors Peter Groffman, Jennifer Jenkins, Rich Pouyat, Tim Fahey, Mary Cadenasso and Steward Pickett, for being our 1000th entry.

S.I.M. City Baltimore - Urban Design Studio

Take a look at the exciting S.I.M. City Baltimore design studio website created by senior undergraduate students from Parsons The New School of Design. S.I.M. stands for sustainable infrastructure models and references the urban design simulation game SIM City. Within this studio the students are creating sustainable design scenarios at the urban block level. They worked in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Harlem Park along with BES researchers, the Baltimore City Sustainability Department planners, Parks & People and community members.

This is a great interactive website which includes many photos and video. Be sure to check it out at this link:http://sce.parsons.edu/studiocourses/BaltimoreStudio2010

Wrapping up a Summer of Professional Development Programs

This summer, fourteen science teachers from Baltimore County and Baltimore City schools participated in the Baltimore Partnership for Environmental Science Literacy Summer Institute.  The teachers spent eight days with Baltimore Ecosystem Study, Towson University staff and graduate students.  They learned about the science behind carbon, water and biodiversity and engaged in thinking about student understanding of these topics.  The teachers visited three BES research sites: Gwynns Falls at Carroll Park, Gwynns Falls at Glyndon and Baisman’s Run.  They met with Dan Dillon (BES) at the Gwynns Falls sites and Ed Doheny (USGS) at Baisman’s Run where they learned about the data collected at each site.  Ed and Dan engaged our guests in a question and answer session.  By the end of the eight days, teachers developed plans for implementing lessons they learned during the workshop into their school curriculum.  Plans are in place to assist teachers throughout the school year with implementation of these lessons and to collect data on student understanding of these topics through a series of pre and post assessments and student interviews. 

In addition to the Summer Institute, five teachers participated in the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) fellowship program.  This 6-week program engaged teachers in conducting research with a mentor scientist while taking a 2-credit graduate course designed by BES and Towson University staff.  They were taught by an array of scientists and professors dedicated to our teacher education efforts.  The five RET 2011 projects are described below:

·        Ms. Dana Riskalla, a science teacher at North Harford High School, conducted research with mentor scientist, Vanessa Beauchamp (Towson University).  Her research took place at locations in Patapsco Valley State Park and throughout the Baltimore metropolitan region.  Her research focused on the identification of wavy leaf basket grass, a common streamside invasive species.

        Mr. Mark Kather, a science teacher at Western School of Technology, conducted research with mentor scientist, Andrew Miller, (BES & University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)).  His summer research was related to an NSF-funded urban hydrology project that involves analysis of data from a series of stream gages distributed throughout the Gwynns Falls watershed using Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

·        Mr. Shanshivani Rajendran began his Research Experiences for Teachers work in June 2011 and is scheduled to complete his project by spring 2012.  Mr. Rajendran, a science teacher at Dunbar High School, is conducting research with mentor scientist, Alan Berkowitz, (BES & the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies).  His research focuses on a qualitative study examining whether summer professional development workshops conducted by the four sites participating in the MSP Pathways project support teachers in building their confidence levels in environmental science content and pedagogy.

        Ms. Lauren Catts, an elementary school teacher at Sandy Plains Elementary School, conducted research with mentor scientist, Dan Boward, (Maryland Department of Natural Resources).  Her research took place at the Department of Natural Resources in Annapolis, Maryland and focused on using stream macroinvertebrate communities as a bioindicator of stream health.

·        Ms. Tia Bossiwa began her RET work in June 2011 and is scheduled to complete her project by winter 2011.  Ms. Bossiwa, a science teacher at Coppin Academy, is conducting research with mentor scientist Ken Belt, (USDA Forest Service).  Her research focuses on feeding habitats of aquatic organisms in streams. 

BES Graduate Students Engage Incoming Freshman at Dunbar High in Environmental Science

On Tuesday, August 9^th, BES-MSP G6-12 Fellows went to Dunbar High School to help teacher Shan Rajendran get entering freshman at summer orientation pumped about environmental science.  The 190 students who rotated through Mr. Rajendran’s classroom that day were greeted with several engagement questions:  1) Does air have mass?  2) How do substances and water move through the environment?  and, 3)  Do plants respire like people?

Students wrote the questions and their hypotheses in their laboratory notebooks and then discussed their predictions as a class.  Then students recorded the mass of an Alka-Seltzer tablet and a cup of water.  After they dropped the Alka-Seltzer in the water they observed fizzing bubbles rising out of the mixture and many students noticed that the mass went down.  Some of the students thought that a mistake had been made but others helped them realize that the mass had gone down because of the gas in the bubbles leaving.  They had just demonstrated that air has mass!

Then the students broke into groups of fifteen and rotated among stations.  Grad Fellow Julie Baynard taught the students how to use Vernier Labquest probes and chambers with oxygen and carbon dioxide probes.  Grad Fellow Natalie Mollett had students work with a watershed model and predict how water would move across the model surface and why.  Grad Fellow Tammy Newcomer gave students jars of substances such as motor oil, fertilizer, and leaves and had students discuss how substances move with water through their schoolyard environment   It looks like these Freshmen are in for many enlightening scientific discoveries in the upcoming year!

Third Maryland Streams Symposium & Mid-Atlantic Volunteer Monitoring Conference

There’s still time to register early (by July 29) for the Third Maryland Streams Symposium and Mid-Atlantic Volunteer Monitoring Conference to be held at Carroll Community College near Westminster, Maryland (see http://www.dnr.state.md.us/streams/streamSymposium.asp ).

The event is sponsored by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, The Maryland Water Monitoring Council, The U.S. EPA and The Maryland Local Watershed Implementation Service.

The Symposium will run from August 10th – 13th, 2011 and the Volunteer Conference will be held on August 11th and 12th.

Congressman John Sarbanes will help us kick off the event during our morning plenary session on the 10th.

Join your friends, colleagues, and fellow water monitors for this exciting event chock full of interesting presentations and exhibits, hands-on field trips and workshops, and an outdoor social/cookout on Thursday the 11th. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you in August.

Dan Boward, Executive Secretary; Maryland Water Monitoring Council
Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources, 580 Taylor Ave.; C-2, Annapolis, Maryland  21401 (410) 260-8605
dboward@dnr.state.md.us

www.marylandwatermonitoring.org