BES Director Designate Emma Rosi-Marshall Joins LTER Network Executive Board

The Long-Term Ecological Research Network is governed by an Executive Board between meetings of the Science Council (http://www.lternet.edu/node/140/).  This Board is thus quite important in scoping the activities of the Network, which coordinates activities and initiatives between the 27 individual sites.  Comparison studies and experiments, shared methodologies, and conceptual integration are important sorts of activities that reside at the level of cross-site activity.  In addition, the Network promotes education, outreach, and diversity of the community of researchers and educators across the LTER sites.  The Executive Board comprises roughly a dozen members, and the various sites rotate in occupying 9 seats. 

We’ll post access to minutes and activities of the Executive Board and Science Council on the BES News as they become available.

Thanks to Emma for taking on this important role in LTER.

BES Education News – Teacher Institute

The Baltimore Ecosystem Study, in Partnership with Towson University, just wrapped up another year of its Math Science Partnership (MSP) Teacher Institute.  The Institute consisted of a 7-day workshop held during the summer of 2012 plus five Saturday workshop sessions during the 2012-2013 school year.  Middle and high school science teachers participated in activities designed to bolster their confidence in teaching carbon, water and biodiversity topics to their students, understanding how their students think and learn about topics in the Environmental Sciences, and using their urban, rural and suburban neighborhoods as ecosystems that students can study.  Saturday workshop topics included Biodiversity, Groundwater, Sustainability, Climate Change and Energy Production.  The project was grateful to have the assistance of many BES scientists, graduate students and collaborators in running these workshops.  A special thanks to Dr. Chris Swan (UMBC), Aditi Bhaskar (UMBC), Abbey Cocke (Baltimore City Office of Sustainability), Marcus Griswold (University of Maryland, Center for Environmental Science), and Theodore Atwood (Baltimore City Energy Office) for delivering exciting and educational presentations to our teachers during these workshop. 

In total, 22 teachers participated in the Institute.  These teachers taught a variety of modules to their students designed by project staff to increase student understanding of key topics in environmental science.  In total, 25 modules developed by project staff were delivered to students.   Teachers received teaching support from project staff including Molly VanAppledorn, Natalie Mollett and Molly Charnes.  Molly VanAppledorn, a graduate student at UMBC, was a first time participant in the project.  In addition to assisting teachers with implementation of modules she contributed to the professional development research group by curating, coding and analyzing databases on national educational activities, assisted in the water research working group, and helped coordinate professional development workshops for Baltimore city and county teachers throughout the school year.  Natalie Mollett, a graduate student at Towson University, was participating in the program for a second year.  Natalie contributed tremendously to the carbon research working group, analyzing student assessment responses and assisting teachers in integrating the modules into their existing curriculum.  Molly Charnes, a high school science teacher from Oregon, came to the MSP project in summer 2012 as a Teacher-in-Residence.  She spent a full year working with the project, assisting teachers in their classrooms and working with the biodiversity team to develop teacher materials for assessing and understanding student thinking.  She has recently returned to the classroom back in Oregon.  

Submitted by Bess Caplan, BES Ecology Education Program Leader

Christine Rega wins best poster award at SURE Congress in Berlin 2013

Christine Rega, a doctoral student at the University of Missouri, won the award for best poster at the First Congress of the Society of Urban Ecology.  This international gathering of more than 200 urban ecologists from around the world, took place from 25-27 July in Berlin. 

Christine describes her background and interests in this way on the BES Website:  “I am originally from New Jersey and completed my BS at the University of Massachusetts. I first fell in love with ornithology and ecology at UMass, working with Swamp Sparrow song analysis for my undergraduate thesis. From there, I received my MS at the University of Delaware, under Dr. Gregory Shriver, studying the effects of soil calcium availability on an urban forest songbird community. I am broadly interested in habitat selection variables for urban songbirds, and how invasive plant species affect these decisions and their reproductive success. I am currently working on my Ph.D. at the University of Missouri with Dr. Charles Nilon. My work focuses on unmanaged vacant lots, evaluating their effectiveness and sustainability as a habitat resource for urban songbirds.”

Christine is currently the Graduate Representative on the BES Project Management Committee.  We are delighted with her contribution to and success at the first ever SURE Congress.

 

Christine Rega, 2nd from left, winner of Best Poster Presentation at the First Congress of the Society for Urban Ecology (SURE), Berlin, 2013.  Also pictured are her doctoral advisor, and BES Co-PI, Dr. Charles Nilon (far left), Tanja Straka (3^rd from left) of the University of Melbourne (prizewinner for best oral presentation) and her advisor, Dr. Mark McDonnell, Director of the Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology.

Explore Environmental History

With Geoffrey Buckley

Saturday August 10, 2013

Presented by:

Baltimore City Historical Society,

Friends of MD’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes,

& Cathedral of the Incarnation Creation Care

Program runs from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm

Peabody Room, Cathedral of the Incarnation

4 East University Parkway, Baltimore 21218

Free admission, parking and refreshments

BCHS stamps War of 1812 Bicentennial Passports

Directions: www.incarnationbaltimore.org

Information: www.historicbaltimore.org  www.olmstedmaryland.org

Contact: Joe Stewart 410.243.4418 joestewart31947@comcast.net

Geoffrey Buckley is the author of “America's Conservation Impulse: Saving Trees in the Old Line State”, “Mountains of Injustice: Social and Environmental Justice in Appalachia” and the upcoming “North American Odyssey: Historical Geographies for the Twenty-First Century”. He is an Ohio University Professor and Long-Term Ecological Research - Baltimore Ecosystem Study Co-Principal Investigator. He has a Ph.D. in Geography from University of Maryland, a M.A., Geography from University of Oregon and a B.A., Environmental Studies and American History from Connecticut College. http://www.ohio.edu/people/buckleg1/

Future Programs include:

McKay Jenkins - Saturday November 2, 2013

McKay Jenkins is the author of “What's Gotten into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World” and editor of “The Peter Mattiessen Reader”, an anthology of American nature writing. He is the Cornelius Tighman Professor of English, Journalism and Environmental Humanities at the University of Delaware. He has a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University, a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in English from Amherst College. His recent essay “The Era of Suburban Sprawl has to End. So, Now What” can be found on his webpage: www.mckayjenkins.com

Adam Rome - Saturday December 7, 2013

Adam Rome is the author of the recently published “The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation” and the prize-winning

“The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism”. He also is past editor of the journal “Environmental History”. He has a B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in American Environmental History. He teaches history and environmental non-fiction at the University of Delaware.

www.udel.edu/History/bio/rome_adam.html