Reflections on the Bay Reflections on Chesapeake Bay Restoration from the first Earth Day (Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program) 51 years after the first Earth Day, Chesapeake Research Consortium (CRC) asked our community and member institutions to reflect on decades of Chesapeake Bay preservation and restoration efforts to [...]
Democratizing Science in the Chesapeake Bay Citizen science creates a participatory pathway for the public to engage in the scientific process and data collection. Through our conversations with the community, we’ve learned that the term “citizen science” can be exclusive and wanted to clarify the use of the term in this article. Citizenship, or the [...]
Research in the Time of COVID-19 In the midst of great uncertainty brought on by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Chesapeake Research Consortium’s (CRC) seven member institutions have shown resilience and adaptivity in conducting research, both in maintaining essential research but also in pursuing new and innovative research avenues. While we highlight how members of [...]
How member institutions are managing under the new COVID-19 restrictions As states across the U.S. have issued social distancing orders to slow the spread of the COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (also known as COVID-19), universities and research centers have had to make major adjustments to their scientific operations. Like everybody else, this is also true for [...]
A New Vocabulary for an Increasingly Polluted World SERC researcher, Linsey Haram, has spearheaded an effort to standardize the language used to discuss the increasingly widespread plastic pollution in our environment. The development of the use of plastics in our society has happened so rapidly that many related phenomena have managed to escape any agreed-upon [...]
Aerial SAV Surveys Support Collaborative Science, Management, and Restoration Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) is a vital component in the health of the Chesapeake Bay and worldwide coastal ecosystems. The SAV program, centered at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) is world-renowned for its monitoring and restoration projects. Robert “JJ” Orth, program director of the [...]
Warming Temperatures May Be Better for Wetlands The Global Change Research Wetland (GCREW), located at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), is home to several long-term experiments designed to predict the effects of sea-level rise and climate change on coastal wetland ecosystems. Genevieve Noyce, a coastal wetland biogeochemist and research scientist at SERC, works on [...]
Shorter marsh grasses and adapting to sea level rise One of the experimental changes on the marsh. Credit: Tom Mozdzer. As carbon dioxide increases, most plants respond by getting bigger. CO2 acts like fuel for most plants, allowing them to grow higher and thicker, increasing their biomass. But what happens when you look [...]
Working Together to Keep Oysters Thriving in the Bay A thriving oyster population is vital to a healthy Chesapeake Bay. As a keystone species, oysters are necessary for filtering water and providing critical habitat for other species in the Bay. The Chesapeake Oyster Alliance is a coalition of partners that includes non-profits, universities, oyster farmers, [...]
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) are opportunities for students to spend a summer pursuing a research project at a hosting institution. These opportunities are funded by the National Science Foundation, and students spend usually 10 weeks working closely with an academic mentor, presenting their findings, and even going on field trips. All 7 of CRC's member [...]
